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Simttican ^i^totical ^ttit0 

GENERAL EDITOR 

. CHARLES H. HASKINS 

Professor of History in Harvard University 




Simttitan ^i^totical feetiegi 

Under the Editorship of Charles H. Haskins, Professor of History in Harvard 
University 

A series of text-books intended, like the American Science 
Series, to be comprehensive, systematic, and authoritative. 

Ready 

Europe Since 1815. 

By Charles D. Hazbn, Professor in Columbia University. 

Modern European History. 

By CHARLB8 D. Hazen. 

Historical Atlas. 

By William R. Shepherd, Professor in Columbia University. 

Atlas of Ancient History. 

By William R. Shepherd. 

History of England. 

By L. M. Larson, Professor in the University of Illinois. 

History of American Diplomacy. 

By Carl Russell Fish, Professor in the University of Wisconsin. 

In preparation 

Medieval and Modem Etirope. 

By Charles W. Colby, Professor in McGill University. 

The Reformation. 

By Preserved Smith. 

The Renaissance. 

By Ferdinand Schevill, Professor in the University of Chicago. 

Europe in the XVH. and XVIH. Centuries. 

By Sidney B. Fay, Professor in Smith College. 

History of Greece. 

By Paul Shorey, Professor in the University of Chicago. 

History of Rome. 

By Jesse B. Carter, Director of the American School of Classical 
Studies at Rome. 

History of Germany. 

By Guy Stanton Ford, Professor in the University of Minnesota. 

History of the United States. 

By Frederick J. Turner, Professor in Harvard University. 



i^lO 



EUROPE IN 1789 





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MODERN 
EUROPEAN HISTORY 



BY 



CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



WITH 2MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



REVISED EDITION 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



11 '^'^\ 



COPYRIGHT, I917, 1919, BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 






>CU51J834 



PREFACE 

To all thoughtful persons the European War has brought home with 
overwhelming power the importance of a knowledge of modern European 
history. For without such knowledge no one can understand, or begin 
to understand, the significance of the forces that have made it, the 
vastness of the issues involved, the nature of what is indisputably one 
of the gravest crises, if not the very gravest, in the history of mankind. 
The destinies of every nation in this world and the conditions of life 
of every individual will inevitably be changed, and may be profoundly 
changed, by the outcome of this gigantic and portentous conflict. No 
citizen of a free country who takes his citizenship seriously, who considers 
himself responsible, to the full extent of his personal influence, for the 
character and conduct of his government, can, without the crudest self- 
stultification, admit that he knows nothing and cares nothing about the 
history of Europe. 

If he cares for his own national inlieritance and tradition, for its 
characteristic and fundamental policies and principles, then he will care 
most emphatically about what happens in Europe. Nothing that 
happens there is really foreign to us, for the fortunes of Europe and 
America are inextricably intertwined. 

This, in my opinion the most outstanding fact in the modern world, 
was exemplified in the eighteenth century in the person of Lafayette, 
an American patriot and a French patriot, a hero of two revolutions. 
In Lafayette's library hung appropriately side by side two momentous 
documents, the American Declaration of Independence and the French 
Declaration of the Rights of Man, two utterances that have had 
memorable consequences in the world because multitudes of men 
have been willing to give their lives that these principles might prevail 
and multitudes have given their lives that they should not prevail. 

Fundamentally this struggle for liberty has been the warp and woof 
of modern European history and the vicissitudes of the struggle are, in ■ 
the deepest sense, what I have attempted to set forth in this volume. 



vi PREFACE 

Complicated, exceedingly, has been the history of this conflict, and many 
other elements have entered into the problem and solution. These I have 
given their due place, but I have also endeavored to keep them in just 
subordination to the central theme. 

As furnishing the background for the story, I have described in the 
opening chapters the chief features of the eighteenth century, the Old 
Regime in Europe and in France. That regime was boldly challenged 
and roughly handled by the French Revolution. I have endeavored to 
indicate the spirit and meaning of that revolution as well as to de- 
scribe its stirring events and personalities. That revolution clashed 
with Europe and started a European revolution, which has had its ups 
and downs, its victories and defeats, its varying issues in the different 
countries. The contest assumed the character of world warfare under 
Napoleon, who said of himself that he was " the Revolution" and that he 
had "killed the Revolution." Neither statement was correct; yet each 
possessed an element of truth. This essential duality of the Napoleonic 
system, Old Regime and New Regime commingled in impossible union, 
I have sought to make clear. 

Napoleon partially conquered the New Regime, and those who con- 
quered Napoleon and sent him to St. Helena were anxious to conquer it 
still more. They for a while succeeded, but in the end the new spirit 
which was abroad in the world was too strong for them and they and 
their works were severely battered by the widespread revolutions of 
1848. To those who are content to look at the surface, the revolutions 
of that year seemed ephemeral; to those who look beneath they appear 
anything but ephemeral. 

This ebb and flow has been the rhythm of European history since 
the close of the eighteenth century. The new has indisputably pro- 
gressed, but it has progressed unequally in the different countries, as 
was natural and inevitable, since those countries are very dissimilar in 
character, in stages of development, and in mental outlook. This all- 
absorbing conflict has not yet ended. 

This struggle for freedom has had many aspects. The spirit of nation- 
alism, so prominent a feature of the nineteenth century, has in some 
cases been an expression of the desire for hberty; in other cases it has 
been the expression of the old familiar desire for national greatness 
and power, nothing more. I have attempted in my narrative to show the 
varying operation of this spirit in the different countries. 



PREFACE vii 

' Again, where economic and social factors have been formative in 
national policy, I have described them, as for instance the conditions 
that prevailed in France before the Revolution, the free trade movement 
in England, the abolition of serfdom in Russia, the Zollverein in Ger- 
many, the tariff policies, the labor legislation, and the various measures 
of social reform which have been a growing feature of the modern world. 
In the treatment of the past century I have drawn freely upon my 
larger work, Europe Since 1815. The numerous illustrations which 
accompany the text have been selected with reference to their historical 
importance, and it is hoped that they will render the scenes and persons 
they portray more actual. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Ernest F. 
Henderson and his publishers, Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, for permis- 
sion to use several illustrations from Dr. Henderson's vivid and illumi- 
nating book Symbol and Satire in the French Revolution; and to 
Miss Louise Stetson Fuller of the Department of History of Smith 
College for the preparation of the Index. 

C. D. H. 

CoLxiMBiA University, January, 191 7 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Old Regime in Exirope i 

II. The Old Regime in France 31 

III. Beginnings of the Revolution 60 

IV. The Making of the Constitution 86 

V. The Legislative Assembly loi 

VI. The Convention 120 

VII. The Directory 152 

VIII. The Consulate 179 

IX. The Early Years of the Empire I94 

X. The Empire at its Height 215 

XL The Decline and Fall of Napoleon 228 

XII. The Congresses 249 

XIII. France under the Restoration 270 

XIV. Revolutions beyond France 280 

XV. The Reign of Loxns Philippe 289 

XVI. Central Europe in Revolt 298 

XVII. The Second French Republic and the Founding of the 

Second Empire : 313 

XVIII. The Making of the Kingdom of Italy 325 

XIX. The Unification of Germany 341 

XX. The Second Empire and the Franco-Prussian War .... 351 

XXI. The German Empire 363 

XXII. France under the Third Republic 384 

XXIII. The Kingdom of Italy since 1870 409 

XXIV. Austria-Hungary since 1848 416 

XXV. England from 1815 to 1868 428 

XXVI. England since 1868 453 

XXVII. The British Empire 487 

XXVIII. The Partition of Africa 507 

XXIX. Spain and Portugal eie 

XXX. Holland and Belgium since 1830 522 

XXXI. Switzerland ^27 

XXXII. The Scandinavian States ^3, 

ix 



xu 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Lucien Bonaparte 176 

Bonaparte, First Consul 179 

Josephine . 180 

Josephine at Mabnaison 184 

The Three Consuls 191 

The Duke d'Enghien 192 

Napoleon Crowning Josephine . . 197 

Napoleon in the Imperial Robes 198 

Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples 203 

Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland 204 

Elise Bonaparte, Princess of Lucca 205 
Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Bor- 

ghese 206 

Caroline Bonaparte, Duchess of 

Berg, and Marie Murat . . . 207 

Joachim Murat, Duke of Berg 208 

Jerome Bonaparte 209 

Napoleon Receiving Queen Louise 

of Prussia at Tilsit, July 6, 

1807 212 

Lord Nelson 213 

Queen Louise of Prussia 215 

Empress Marie Louise 226 

Baron vom Stein 231 

Pope Pius VII 232 

Napoleon's Camp Bed 235 

Napoleon Returning from France, 

December, 1812 237 

Napoleon's War Horse, "Marengo " 239 

The Duke of Wellington 243 

Blucher 244 

Napoleon Embarking on the "Bel- 

lerophon" 245 

The Island of St. Helena .... 245 
Longwood, Napoleon's House at 

St. Helena 246 

Napoleon's Tomb in the Invalides, 

Paris 247 

Tomb of Napoleon at St. Helena 248 

The Congress of Vienna 251 

Metternich 256 

Louis XVIII 271 

The Construction of a Barricade 275 

Street Fighting on July 28, 1830 277 

Leopold I . 282 

Alexander I 284 



Louis Philippe 290 

Guizot 293 

Louis Kossuth 299 

Francis Joseph I 304 

The Parliament of Frankfort . . . 309 

Lamartine in 1832 314 

Napoleon HI 321 

Empress Eugenie 323 

Joseph Mazzini 327 

Cavour 331 

Garibaldi 337 

Victor Emmanuel II 338 

William I 342 

Bismarck 345 

Moltke 348 

Leon Gambetta 359 

The Proclamation of William I as 
German Emperor, Versailles, 

January 18, 1871 361 

Dropping the Pilot 377 

William II 381 

Thiers 385 

Marshal MacMahon 391 

Jules Grevy 392 

Jules Ferry 393 

Sadi-Carnot 394 

Casimir Perier 396 

Feli.x Faure 396 

Emile Loubet 398 

Alfred Dreyfus 399 

Interior of the Chamber of Deputies 402 

TheophUe Delcasse 407 

Francis Deak 417 

The Old Parhament Buildings. 

Burned in 1834 429 

Passing of the Reform Bill in the 

House of Lords 44° 

Queen Victoria at the Age of 20 443 

Richard Cobden 447 

John Bright 448 

Sir Robert Peel 449 

Houses of Parliament, London. 

Begun 1840, Cbmpleted 1852 450 

William E. Gladstone 4S8 

Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beacons- 
field^ 462 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Xlll 



Charles Stewart Parnell 467 

Queen Victoria, at the Age of 

Seventy-eight 474 

David Lloyd George 47^ 

Herbert Asquith 479 

Interior of the House of Commons 481 

Interior of the House of Lords . . 483 

The Cabinet Room 484 

Majuba Hill 5°° 

Joseph Chamberlain 5°2 

Paul Kruger S^S 

Lord Roberts 5°3 

General Gordon S^S 

Lord Kitchener 5^4 



King Albert I 524 

Facsimile of Article VH of the 
Treaty of 1839, which Guaran- 
teed the Independence and 
Perpetual NeutraUty of Bel- 
gium 525 

Oscar H 53^ 

The Congress of Berlin 549 

Abdul Hamid II 556 

Alexander H 5^6 

Nicholas II 569 

Francis Joseph 59^ 

Sir Edward Grey 615 

Victor Emmanuel III 618 



MAPS 

IN COLOR 

Europe in 1780 p ,. . 

-p. rronhsptece 

i^urope in 1740 

Italy in the Eighteenth Century, 1770 

The Growth of Prussia under Fredericli the Great 

Germany in 17S9 

The Partition of Poland 

France before the Revolution ^° 

France by Departments ^ 

Northern Italy Illustrating Bonaparte's First Campaign .....'..'".' jg! 

Europe in 181 1 ^ 

Europe in 1815 

Distribution of Races in Austria-Hungary ^^0 

The German Confederation, 1815-1866 f 

Italy, 1815-1859 ••'.'.'*.'.*'' 266 

The Unification of Italy 

The Growth of Prussia since 1815 ^^'^ 

The German Empire, 1910 ' o 

Colonial Possessions of the European Powers in 1815 ' ' .33 

Canada and Newfoundland 

Africa. European Possessions in 1884 

Africa, 1910 '^ 

The Rise of the Balkan States . ^^6 

Asia in 1914 ^^ 

The Balkan States According to the Treaty of Bucharest [ [ 604 

Colonial Possessions of the European Powers in 1910 608 

Europe in 1912 ' 

612 

IN BLACK 

Egypt and Syria 

Map Illustrating Campaigns of Napoleon '*' ^^ 

Australia and New Zealand . 

The Western Front, 1914 ' ,- 

The Eastern Front ^ 

649 

The Italian Front z- 

The "Middle Europe" Scheme '..".'.'.'.*.'.' * '. . . 65- 

Russia in 19 18, after the Treaty of Brest Litovsk .'.'.*,*.' 660 

The Western Front, 1918 * * 668 

xiv 



EUROPE 

IN 1740 

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I I House of Savoy 

I Kingdom of Prussia. 





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MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY 

CHAPTER I 
THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

Anyone who seeks to understand the stirring period in which we are 
now Uving becomes quickly aware that he must first know the history of 
the French Revolution, a movement that inaugurated a new era, not 
only for France but for the world. The years from 1789 importance 
to 181 5, the years of the Revolution and of Napoleon, of the French 
effected one of the greatest and most difficult transitions of ^^° " °° 
which history bears record, and to gain any proper sense of its signifi- 
cance one must have some glimpse of the background, some conception 
of what Europe was like in 1789. That background can only be sketched 
here in a few broad strokes, far from adequate to a satisfactory appre- 
ciation, but at least indicating the point of departure. 

What was Europe in 1789? One thing, at least, it was not: it was 
not a unity. There were states of every size and shape and with every 
form of government. The States of the Church were theo- Europe in 
cratic; capricious and cruel despotism prevailed in Turkey; ^"^^^ 
absolute monarchy in Russia, Austria, France, Prussia; constitutional 
monarchy in England; while there were various kinds of so-called re- 
publics — federal republics in Holland and Switzerland, a republic whose 
head was an elective king in Poland, aristocratic republics in Venice and 
Genoa and in the free cities of the Holy Roman Empire. 

Of these states the one that was to be the most persistent enemy 

of France and of French ideas throughout the period we are about to 

describe was England, a commercial and colonial empire of the first 

importance. This empire, of long, slow growth, had passed 

., 1 1 • 1 , . -r • , • 1 A momentous 

through many highly significant experiences during the century in 

eighteenth century. Indeed that century is one of the most EngUsh 

momentous in English history, rendered forever memorable 

by three great series of events which in important respects transformed 

the national life of England and her international relations, giving them 



2 THE OLD RfiGIME IN EUROPE 

the character and tendency which have been theirs ever since. These 
three streams of tendency or lines of evolution out of which the modern 
power of Britain has emerged were: the acquisition of what are still the 
most valuable parts of her colonial empire, Canada and India; the estab- 
lishment of the parliamentary system of government, that is, government 
of the nation by its representatives, not by its royal house, the undoubted 
supremacy of Parliament over the Crown; and the beginnings of what 
is called the Industrial Revolution, that is, of the modern factory system 
of production on a vast scale which during the course of the nineteenth 
century made England easily the chief industrial nation of the world. 

The evolution of the parliamentary system of government had, of 
course, been long in progress but was immensely furthered by the ad- 
Accession of vent in 1 7 14 of a new royal dynasty, the House of Hanover, 
the House of still at this hour the reigning family. The struggle between 
Crown and Parliament, which had been long proceeding 
and had become tense and violent in the seventeenth century in connec- 
tion with the attempts of the Stuart kings to make the nionarchy all- 
powerful and supreme, ended finally in the eighteenth century with the 
victory of Parliament, and the monarch ceased to be, what he remained i| 
in the rest of Europe, the dominant element in the state. 

In 1 701 Parliament, by mere legislative act, altered the line of suc- 
cession by passing over the direct, legitimate claimant because he was a 
Catholic, and by calling to the throne George, Elector of Hanover, be- 
cause he was a Protestant. Thus the older branch of the royal family 
was set aside and a younger or collateral branch was put in its place. 
This was a plain defiance of the ordinary rules of descent which gener- 
ally underlie the monarchical system everywhere. It showed that the 
will of Parliament was superior to the monarchical principle, that, in a 
way, the monarchy was elective. Still other important consequences 
followed from this act. 

George I, at the time of his accession to the English throne in 17 14 
fifty-four years of age, was a German. He continued to be a German 
The early prince, more concerned with his electorate of Hanover than 
Hanoverians ^j^-j^ ^iis new kingdom. He did not understand a word of 
EngUsh and, as his ministers were similarly ignorant of German, he was 
compelled to resort to a dubious Latin when he wished to communicate 
with them. He was king from 17 14 to 1727, and was followed by his 
son, George II, who ruled from 1727 to 1760 and who, though he knew 



PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND 3 

• 

English, spoke it badly and was far more interested in his petty German 
principality than in imperial Britain. 

The first two Georges, whose chief interest in England was the money 
they could get out of it, therefore allowed their ministers to carry on the 
government and they did not even attend the meetings of Development 
the ministers where questions of policy were decided. For of Cabinet 
forty-sLx years this royal abstention continued. The result 
was the establishment of a regime never seen before in any country. 
The royal power was no longer exercised by the king, but was exercised 
by his ministers, who, moreover, were members of Parliament. In other 
words, to use a phrase that has become famous, the king reigns but does 
not govern. Parliament really governs, through a committee of its 
members, the ministers. 

The ministers must have the support of the majority party in Par- 
liament, and during all this period they, as a matter of fact, relied upon 
the party of the Whigs. It had been the Whigs who had The Whigs 
carried through the revolution of 1688 and who were com- "^ power 
mitted to the principle of the limitation of the royal power in favor of 
the sovereignty of Parliament. As George I and George II owed their 
throne to this party, and as the adherents of the other great party, the 
Tories, were long supposed to be supporters of the discarded Stuarts, 
England entered upon a period of Whig rule, which steadily undermined 
the authority of the monarch. The Hanoverian kings owed their posi- 
tion as kings to the Whigs. They paid for their right to reign by the 
abandonment of the powers that had hitherto inhered in the monarch. 

The change that had come over their position did not escape the 
attention of the monarchs concerned. George II, compelled to accept 
ministers he detested, considered himself "a, prisoner upon the 
throne." "Your ministers. Sire," said one" of them to him, "are but 
the instruments of your government." George smiled and replied, "In 
this country the ministers are king." 

Besides the introduction of this unique form of government the 
other great achievement of the Whigs during this period was an extraor- 
dinary increase in the colonial possessions of England, Growth of 
the real launching of Britain upon her career as a world the British 
power, as a great imperial state. This sudden, tremen- ™p"^® 
dous expansion was a result of the Seven Years' War, which raged from 
1756 to 1763 in every part of the world, in Europe, in America, in Asia, 



4 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

• 

and on the sea. Many nations were involved and the struggle was 
highly complicated, but two phases of it stand out particularly and in 
high relief, the struggle between England and France, and the struggle 
between Prussia on the one hand and Austria, France, and Russia on 
the other. The Seven Years' War remains a mighty landmark in the 
history of England and of Prussia, its two conspicuous beneficiaries. 

England found in William Pitt, later Earl of Chatham, an incompar- 
able leader, a great orator of a declamatory and theatrical type, an in- 
corruptible statesman, a passionate patriot, a man instinct 
WiUiam Pitt . , ^ , • i • i i ^ , • i 

With energy, aglow with pride and conndence m the splen- 
dor of the destinies reserved for his country. Pitt infused his own 
energy, his irresistible driving power into every branch of the public 
service. Head of the ministry from 1757 to 1761, he aroused the na- 
tional sentiment to such a pitch, he directed the national efforts with 
such contagious and imperious confidence, that he turned a war that 
had begun badly into the most glorious and successful that England 
had ever fought. On the sea, in India, and in America, victory after 
victory over the French rewarded the nation's extraordinary efforts. 
Pitt boasted that he alone could save the country. Save it he surely 
did. He was the greatest of war ministers, imparting his indomitable 
resolution to multitudes of others. No one, it was said, ever entered his 
office without coming out a braver man. His triumph was complete 
when Wolfe defeated Montcalm upon the Plains of Abraham. 

By the Peace of Paris, which closed this epochal struggle, England 
acquired from France disputed areas of Nova Scotia, all of Canada, and 
Peace of the region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi 

Paris River, and also acquired Florida from Spain. From France, 

too, she snatched at the same time supremacy in India. Thus England 
had become a veritable world-empire under the inspiring leadership of 
the "Great Commoner." Her horizons, her interests, had grown vastly 
more spacious by this rapid increase in mihtary renown, in power, in 
territory. She had mounted to higher influence in the world, and that, 
too, at the expense of her old historic enemy, just across the Channel. 

But all this prestige and greatness were imperiled and gravely com- 
promised by the reign that had just begun. George III had, in 1760, 
Accession of come to the throne which he was not to leave until claimed 
George III ^y death sixty years later. "The name of George III," 
writes one English historian, "cannot be penned without a pang, can 



THE POLICIES OF GEORGE THE THIRD 5 

hardly be penned without a curse, such mischief was he fated to do 
the country." Unlike his two predecessors, he was not a German, 
but was a son of England, had grown up in England and had been 
educated there, and on his accession, at the age of twenty-two, had 
announced in his most famous utterance that he "gloried in the name 
of Briton." But wisdom is no birthright, and George III was not des- 
tined to show forth in his life the saving grace of that quality. With 
many personal virtues, he was one of the least wise of monarchs and 
one of the most obstinate. 

His mother, a German princess, attached to all the despotic notions 
of her native land, had frequently said to him, "George, be a king." 

This maternal advice, that he should not follow the example ^ 

. . opposition of 

of the first two Georges but should mLx actively m public George ill 

affairs, fell upon fruitful soil. George was resolved not only ^o the cabi- 

, , , 1-1 °®* system 

to reign but to govern in the good old monarchical w^ay. 

This determination brought him into a sharp and momentous clash with 
the tendency and the desire of his age. The historical significance of 
George III lies in the fact that he w^as resolved to be the chief directing 
powder in the state, that he challenged the system of government which 
gave that position to Parliament and its ministers, that he threw him- 
self directly athwart the recent constitutional development, that he 
intended to break up the practices followed during the last two reigns 
and to rule personally as did the other sovereigns of the world. As the 
new system was insecurely established, his vigorous intervention brought 
on a crisis in which it nearly perished. 

George III, bent upon being king in fact as well as in name, did not 
formally oppose the cabinet system of government, but sought to make 
the cabinet a mere tool of his will, filling it with men who political 
would take orders from him, and aiding them in controlling methods of 
Parliament by the use of various forms of bribery and in- ^°^^^ 
fluence. It took several years to effect this real perversion of the cabi- 
net system, but in the end the King absolutely controlled the ministry 
and the two chambers of Parliament. The Whigs, who since 1688 had 
dominated the monarch and had successfully asserted the predominance 
of Parliament, were gradually disrupted by the insidious royal policy, 
and were supplanted by the Tories, who were always favorable to a strong 
kingship and who now entered upon a period of supremacy which was 
to last until well into the nineteenth century. 



6 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

After ten years of this mining and sapping the King's ideas triumphed 
in the creation of a ministry which was completely submissive to his will. 
The ministry TMs ministry, of which Lord North was the leading member, 
of Lord North lasted twelve years, from 1770 to 1782. Lord North was a 
minister after the King's own heart. He never pretended to be the 
head of the government, but accepted and executed the King's wishes 
with the ready obedience of a lackey. The royal autocracy was 
scarcely veiled by the mere continuance of the outer forms of a free 
government. 

Having thus secured entire control of ministry and Parliament, 
George III proceeded to lead the British Empire straight toward 
American destruction, to what Goldwin Smith has called ''the most 
Revolution tragical disaster in English history." The King and his 
tools initiated a policy which led swiftly and inevitably to civil war. 
For the American Revolution was a civil war within the British 
Empire. The King had his supporters both in England and in America; 
he had opponents both in America and England. Party divisions 
were much the same in the mother country and in the ' colonies, Whigs 
versus Tories, the upholders of the principle of self-government against 
the upholders of the principle of the royal prerogative. In this appalling 
crisis, not only was the independence of America involved, but parlia- 
mentary government as worked out in England was also at stake. 
Had George III triumphed not only would colonial liberties have 
disappeared, but the right of Parliament to be predominant in the 
state at home would have vanished. The Whigs of England knew this 
well and their leaders, Pitt, Fox, Burke, gloried in the victories of the 
rebellious colonists. 

The struggle for the fundamental rights of free men, for that was 
what the American Revolution signified for both America and England, 
Fall of Lord was long doubtful. France now took her revenge for the 
^°'^^ humiliations of the Seven Years' War by aiding the thirteen 

colonies, hoping thus to humble her arrogant neighbor, grown so great 
at her expense. It was the disasters of the American War that saved the 
parliamentary system of government for England by rendering the King 
unpopular, because disgracefully unsuccessful. In 1782 Lord North 
and all his colleagues resigned. This was the first time that an entire 
ministry had been overthrown. 

George the Third's attempt to be master in the state had failed and 



FOREIGN OPINION OF ENGLAND 7 

although the full consequences of his defeat did not appear for some 
time, nevertheless they were decisive for the future of England. The 
king might henceforth reign but he was not to govern, gigj^fi^^^^e 
To get this cardinal principle of free government under of the 
monarchical forms estabUshed, an empire was disrupted. ^^^Jj^J"^ 
From that disruption flowed two mighty consequences. 
The principles of republican government gained a field for development 
in the New World, and those of constitutional or Hmited monarchy a 
field in one of the famous countries of the Old. These two types of 
government have since exerted a powerful and an increasing influence 
I upon other peoples desirous of controUing their own destinies. Their 
importance as models worthy of imitation has not yet been exhausted. 

But the disaster of the American War was so great that the immedi- 
ate effect was a decided impairment of England's prestige. It is a curi- 
ous fact that after that she was considered by most of the England's 
rulers of Europe a decaying nation. She had lost her most loss of 
valuable colonies in America. The notion was prevalent ^^^^^^^ 
that her successes in the Seven Years' War had not been due to her own 
ability but to the incapacity of Louis XV, whereas they had been due 
to both. The idea that it was possible to destroy England was current 
in France, the idea that her empire was really a phantom empire which 
would disappear at the first hostile touch, that India could be detached 
far more easily than the thirteen colonies had been. It was considered 
that as she had grown rich she had lost her virility and energy and 
tvas undermined by luxury and sloth. At the same time, although in 
flagrant contradiction to the sentiments just described, there was a 
vague yet genuine fear of her. Though she had received so many 
blows, yet she had herself in the past given so many to her rivals and 
especially to France that they did well to have a lurking suspicion 
after all as to her entire decadence. The rivahy, centuries old, of 
France and England, was one of the chief elements of the general 
European situation. It had shown no signs of abating. The issues 
of the Revolution were to cause it to flame up porten- England and 
tously. It dominated the whole period down to Water- the French 
loo. In England the French Revolution was destined to 
find its most redoubtable and resolute enemy. 

In Italy, on the other hand, it was to find, partly a receptive pupil, 
partly an easy prey. The most important thing about Italy was that 



8 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

it was unimportant. Indeed there was no Italy, no united, single coun- 
Itai a col- ^^y^ ^^^ '^^^y ^ collection of petty states, generally back- 
lection of ward in their political and economic development. Once 
petty states masters in their own house, the Itahans had long ago 
fallen from their high estate and had for centuries been in more or less 
subjection to foreigners, to Spaniards, to Austrians, sometimes to the 
French. This had reacted unfavorably upon their characters, and had 
made them timid, time-serving, self-indulgent, pessimistic. They had no 
great attachment to their governments, save possibly in Piedmont and 
w kn f ^'^ ^^^ republics of Venice and Genoa, and there was no 
the govern- reason why they, should have. Several of the governments 
^^^^^ were importations from abroad, or rather impositions, which 

had never struck root in the minds or interests of the people. The 
political atmosphere was one of indifference, weariness, disillusionment. 
However, toward the end of the eighteenth century there were signs of 
an awakening. The Italians could never long be unmindful of the 
glories of their past. They had their haunting traditions which would 
never allow them to forget or renounce their rights, however oppressed 
they might be. They were a people of imagination and of fire, though 
they long appeared to foreigners quite the reverse, as in fact the very 
stuff of which willing slaves are made, a view which was seriously erro- 
neous. It cannot be said that there was in the eighteenth century any 
movement aiming at making Italy a nation, but there were poets and 
historians who flashed out, now and then, with some patriotic phrase or 
Aspirations figure that revealed vividly a shining goal on the distant 
for unity horizon toward which all Italians ought to press. "The day 

will come," said Alfieri, "when the Italians will be born again, audacious 
on the field of battle." Humanity was not meant to be shut in by such 
narrow horizons as those presented by these petty states, but was en- 
titled to more spacious destinies. This longing for national unity was 
as yet the passion of only a few, of men of imagination who had a lively 
sense of Italy's great past and who also possessed an instinct for the 
future. A French writer expressed a mood quite general with cultivated 
people when she said: "The Italians are far more remarkable because 
of what they have been and because of what they might be than 
because of what they now are." Seeds of a new Italy were already 
germinating. They were not, however, to yield their fruit until well 
into the nineteenth century. 



; swit::rrland ^5-. A 

(\Tjv'rol 



ITALY 

IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
1770 




10 LongEast 12orGreeiwich 14- 



THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE ^9 

Turning to the east of France we find Germany, the country that 
was to be the chief battlefield of Europe for many long years, and that 
was to undergo the most surprising transformations. Ger- 
many, like Italy, was a collection of small states, only these the battle- 
states were far more numerous than in the peninsula to the ^^^^ °^ 

. Europe 

south. Germany had a form of unity, at least it pretended 

to have, in the so-called Holy Roman Empire. How many states were 
included in it, it is difficult to say; at least 360, if in the reckoning are 
included all the nobles who recognized no superior save the ^j^^ jj^jy 
emperor, who held their power directly from him and were Roman 
subject to no one else. There were more than fifty free or ^P""® 
imperial cities, holding directly from the emperor and managing their 
own affairs; and numerous ecclesiastical states, all independent of each 
other. Then there were small states like Baden and Wiirtemberg and 
Bavaria and many others. In all this empire there were only two 
states of any importance in the general affairs of Europe, Prussia and 
Austria. 

This empire with its high-sounding names, "Holy" and "Roman,"" 
was incredibly weak and inefficient. Its emperor, not hereditary but 
elective, was nothing but a pompous, solemn pretense. He j.^^ 
had no real authority, could give no orders, could create no phantom 
armies, could follow out no policies, good or bad, for the ®™p^''°'' 
German princes had during the course of the centuries robbed him of all 
the usual and necessary attributes of power. He was little more than a 
gorgeous figure in a pageant. There were, in addition, an imperial diet 
or national assembly, and an imperial tribunal, but they were as palsied 
as was the emperor. 

What w^as important in Germany was not the empire, which was 
powerless for defense, useless for any serious purpose, but the separate 
states that composed it, and indeed only a few of these ^j^^ ^^ 
had any significance. All these petty German princelings German 
responded to two emotions. All were jealous of their 
independence and all were eager to annex each other's territory. 
They never thought of the interests of Germany, of the empire, of 
the Fatherland. What power they had they had largely secured by 
despoiling the empire. Patriotism was not one of their weaknesses. 
Each was looking out emphatically for himself. To make a strong, 
united nation out of such mutually repellent atoms would be nothing 



lo THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

less than magical. The material was most unpromising. Neverthe- 
less the feat has been accomplished, as we shall see, although, as in 
the case of Italy, not until well on into the nineteenth century. 

The individual states were everything, the empire was nothing, and 
with it the French Revolutionists and Napoleon were destined to play 
Austria and great havoc. Two states, as has been said, counted par- 
Prussia the ticularly, Austria and Prussia, enemies generallv, rivals 
only unpor- n- • . . ,, 

tant states always, alhes sometimes, Austria was old and famous, 

m Germany Prussia really quite new but rapidly acquiring a formidable 
reputation. Then, as now, the former was ruled by the House of Haps- 
burg, the latter by the House of HohenzoUern. There was no Austrian 
nation, but there was the most extraordinary jumble of states and races 
and languages to be found in Europe, whose sole bond of union was 
loyalty to the reigning house. The Hapsburg dominions were widely. 
The lands of loosely scattered, though the main bulk of them was in 
the Hapsburgs |-j^g Danube valley. There was no common Austrian patri- 
otism; there were Bohemians, Hungarians, Milanese, Netherlanders, 
Austrians proper, each with a certain sense of unity, a certain self- 
consciousness, but there was no single nation comprehending, fusing all 
these elements. Austria was not like France or England. Neverthe- 
less there were twenty-four millions of people under the direction of 
one man, and therefore they were an important factor in the politics 
of Europe. 

In the case of Prussia, however, we have a real though still rudimen- 
tary nation, hammered together by hard, repeated, well-directed blows 
Prussia delivered by a series of energetic, ambitious rulers. Prussia 

small but as a kingdom dated only from 1701, but the heart of this 
vigorous state was Brandenburg, and Brandenburg had begun a 

slow upward march as early as the fifteenth century, when the Hohen- 
zollerns came from South Germany to take control of it. In the six- 
teenth century the possessions of this family were scattered from the 
The Hohen- region of the Rhine to the borders of Russia. How to make 
zoUerns them into a single state, responsive to a single will, was the 

problem. In each section there were feudal estates, asserting their rights 
against their ruler. But the Hohenzollerns had a very clear notion of what 
they wanted. They wished and intended to increase their own power 
as rulers, to break down all opposition within, and without steadily to 
aggrandize their domains. In the realization of their program, to which 



PRUSSIA'S MILITARY DEVELOPMENT ii 

they adhered tenaciously from generation to generation, they were suc- 
cessful. Prussia grew larger and larger, the government became more 
and more autocratic, and the emphasis in the state came to be more and 
more placed upon the army. Mirabeau was quite correct when he said 
that the great national industry of Prussia was war. Prussian rulers were 
hard-working, generally conceiving their mission soberly and seriously 
as one of service to the state, not at all as one inviting to personal 
self-indulgence. They were hard-headed and intelUgent in developing 
the economic resources of a country originally little favored by nature. 
They were attentive to the opportunities afforded by German and 
European politics for the advancement of rulers who had the necessary 
intelligence and audacity. In the long reign of Frederick II, called 
the Great (i 740-1 786), and unquestionably far and away the ablest of 
all the rulers of the Hohenzollern dynasty, we see the brilliant and 
faithful expression of the most characteristic features, methods, and 
aspirations of this vigorous royal house. 

The successive monarchs of Prussia justified the extraordinary em- 
phasis they put upon military force by pointing to the fact that their 
country had no natural boundaries but was simply an importance 
undifferentiated part of the great sandy plain of North of the army 
Germany, that no river or no mountam range gave protec- 
tion, that the way of the invader was easy. This was quite true, but it 
was also equally true that Prussia's neighbors had no greater protection 
from her than she from them. As far as geography was concerned, in- 
vasion of Prussia was no easier than aggression from Prussia. At any 
rate every Prussian ruler felt himself first a general, head of an army 
which it was his pride to increase. Thus the Great Elector, who had ruled 
from 1640 to 1688, had inherited an army of less than 4,000 men, and had 
bequeathed one of 24,000 to his successor. The father of Frederick II 
had inherited one of 38,000 and had left one of 83,000. Thus Prussia 
with a population of two and a half millions had an army of 83,000, 
while Austria with a population of 24,000,000 had one of less than 
100,000. With this force, highly drilled and amply provided with the 
sinews of war by the systematic and rigorous economies of his father, 
Frederick was destined to go far. He is one of the few men who have 
changed the face of Europe. By war, and the subsidiary arts that 
minister unto it, Frederick pushed his small state into the very fore- 
front of European politics. Before his reign was half over he had 



12 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 



! 



made it one of the Great Powers, everywhere reckoned as such, al- 
though in population, area, and wealth, compared with the other 
Great Powers, it was small indeed. 

As a youth all of Frederick's tastes had been for letters, for art, for 
music, for philosophy and the sciences, for conversation, for the deli- 
Th vouth cacies and elegancies of culture. The French language and 
of Frederick French literature were his passion and remained his chief 
* ® ^^^^ source of enjoyment all through his life. He wrote French 
verses, he hated military exercises, he played the flute, he detested 
tobacco, heavy eating and drinking, and the hunt, which appeared to 
his father as the natural manly and royal pleasures. The thought that 
this youth, so indifferent or hostile to the stern, bleak, serious ideals of 
duty incumbent upon the royal house for the welfare of Prussia, so inter- 
ested in the frivohties and fripperies of life, so carelessly self-indulgent, 
would one day be king and would probably wreck the state by his in- 
competence and his levity, so enraged the father, Frederick William I, a 
rough, boorish, tyrannical, hard-working, and intensely patriotic man, 
that he subjected the Crown Prince to a Draconian disciphne which at 
times attained a pitch of barbarity, caning him in the presence of the 
army, boxing his ears before the common people, compelling him from a 
prison window to witness the execution of his most intimate friend, 
who had tried to help him escape from this odious tyranny by at- 
tempted flight from the country. In such a furnace was the young 
prince's mettle steeled, his heart hardened. Frederick came out of this 
ordeal self-contained, cynical, crafty, but sobered and submissive to 
the fierce paternal will. He did not, according to his father's, expression 
"kick or rear" again. For several years he buckled to the prosaic task 
of learning his future trade in the traditional Hohenzollern manner, dis- 
charging the duties of minor offices, famiharizing himself with the dry 
details of administration, and invested with larger responsibilities as his 
reformation seemed, in the eyes of his father, satisfactorily to progress. 

When he came to the throne in 1740 at the age of twenty-eight he 
came equipped with a free and keen intellect, with a character of iron, 
Frederick ^^^ "^^^^ ^^ ambition that was soon to set the world in 
becomes flame. He ruled for forty-six years and before half his 

^^ reign was over it was evident that he had no peer in Europe. 

It was thought that he would adopt a manner of life quite different from 
his father's. Instead, however, there was the same austerity, the same 



FREDERICK'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 13 

simplicity, the same intense devotion to work, the same singleness of 
aim, that aim being the exaltation of Prussia. The machinery of gov- 
ernment was not altered but it was now driven at unprecedented speed by 
this vigorous, aggressive, supple personality. For Frederick possessed 
supreme abiUty and displayed it from the day of his accession to the day 
of his death. He was, as Lord Acton has said, "the most consummate 
practical genius that, in modern times, has inherited a throne." 

His first important act revealed the character and the intentions of the 
ruler. For this man who as a youth had loathed the life of a soldier and 
had shirked its obligations as long as he could was now to Attacks 
prove himself one of the great military commanders of the Austria and 
world's history. He w^as the most successful of the robber ^^*^®^ ^ ^^^ 
barons in which the annals of Germany abounded, and he had the ethics 
of the class. He invaded Silesia, a large and rich province belonging to 
Austria and recognized as hers by a pecuharly solemn treaty signed by 
Prussia. But Frederick wanted it and considered the moment oppor- 
tune as an inexperienced young woman, Maria Theresa, had just ascended 
the Austrian throne. *'My soldiers were ready, my purse was full," said 
Frederick concerning this famous raid. Of all the inheritance of Maria 
Theresa "Silesia," said he, "was that part which was most useful to the 
House of Brandenburg." "Take what you can," he also remarked, 
"you are never wrong unless you are obliged to give back." Frederick's 
In these utterances Frederick paints himself and his reign political 
in imperishable colors. Success of the most palpable sort P"""p^^ 
was his reward. Neither phghted faith, nor chivalry toward a woman, 
nor any sense of personal honor ever deterred him from any policy that 
might promise gain to Prussia. One would scarcely suspect from such 
hardy sentiments that Frederick had as a young man written a treatise 
against the statecraft of Machiavelli. That eminent Florentine would, 
it is safe to say, have been entirely content with the practical precepts 
according to which his titled critic fashioned his actual conduct. The 
true, authentic spirit of Machiavelli's political philosophy has never been 
expressed with greater brevity and precision than by Frederick. "If 
there is anything to be gained by being honest, honest we will be; and 
if it is necessary to deceive, let us be scoundrels." 

If there is any defense for Frederick's conduct to be found in the fact 
that his principles or his lack of them were shared by most of his crowned 
contemporaries and by many other rulers before and since, he is entitled 



14 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

to that defense. He himself, however, was never much concerned about 
this aspect of the matter. It was, in his opinion, frankly negHgible. 

Frederick seized Silesia with ease in 1740, so unexpected was the 
attack. He thus added to Prussia a territory larger than Massachusetts, 
The Silesian Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined, and a popula- 
Wars j^ion of over a million and a quarter. But having seized it, 

he was forced to fight intermittently for twenty-three years before he 
could be sure of his ability to retain it. The first two Silesian wars 
(i 740-1 748) are best known in history as the wars of the Austrian 
Succession. The third was the Seven Years' War, a world conflict, as 
we have seen, involving most of the great states of Europe, but im- 
portant to Frederick mainly because of its relation to his retention 
of Silesia. 

It was the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) that made the name and 
fame of Frederick ring throughout the world. But that deadly struggle 
The Seven several times seemed about to engulf him and his country in 
Years' War utter ruin. Had England not been his ally, aiding with her 
subsidies and with her campaigns against France, in Europe, Asia, 
America, and on the high seas, thus preventing that country from fully 
cooperating against Prussia, Frederick must have failed. The odds 
against him were stupendous. He, the ruler of a petty state with not more 
than 4,000,000 inhabitants, was confronted by a coalition of Austria, 
France, Russia, Sweden, and many little German states, with a total 
population perhaps twenty times as large as Prussia's. This coalition 
had already arranged for the division of his kingdom. He was to be 
left only Brandenburg, the primitive core of the state, the original terri- 
tory given to the House of Hohenzollern in 141 5 by the emperor. 

Practically the entire continent was united against this little state 
which a short time before had hardly entered into the calculations of 
Conquest of European politics. But Frederick was undaunted. He 
Saxony overran Saxony, a neutral country, seized its treasury be- 

cause he needed it, and, by a flagrant breach of international usage, 
forced its citizens to fight in his armies, which were thus considerably 
increased. When reproached for this unprecedented act he laconically 
rephed that he rather prided himself on being original. 

The war thus begun had its violent ups and downs. Attacked from 
the south by the Austrians, from the east by the Russians, and always 
outnumbered, Frederick, fighting a defensive war, owed his salvation to 



FREDERICK AND THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 15 

the rapidity of his manoeuvres, to the slowness of those of his enemies, 
to his generally superior tactics, and to the fact that there was an entire 
lack of coordination among his adversaries. He won the 
battle of Rossbach in 1757, his most brilUant victory, whose Rossbach, 
fame has not yet died away. With an army of only 20,000 ^°J^^^^^ ^' 
he defeated a combined French and German army of 55,000 
in an engagement that lasted only an hour and a half, took 16,000 pris- 
oners, seventy- two cannon, and sustained a loss of less than a thousand 
men himself. Immense was the enthusiasm evoked by this Prussian 
triumph over what was reputed to be the finest army in Europe. It 
mattered little that the majority of the conquered army were Germans. 
The victory was popularly considered one of Germans over French, and 
such has remained its reputation ever since in the German national con- 
sciousness, thus greatly stirred and vivified. 

Two years later Frederick suffered an almost equally disastrous 
defeat at the hands of the Austrians and Russians at Kunersdorf. 

"I have had two horses killed under me," he wrote the „ , 

Battle of 

night after this battle, "and it is my misfortune that I still Kunersdorf, 
live myself. ... Of an army of 48,000 men I have only ^"^^* ^^' 
3,000 left. ... I have no more resources and, not to lie 
about it, I think everything is lost." 

Later, after another disaster, he wrote: "I should like to hang myself, 
but we must act the play to the end." In this temper he fought on, year 
after year, through elation, through depression, with defeat Desperate 
behind him and defeat staring him in the face, reheved by character of 
occasional successes, saved by the incompetence and folly 
of his enemies, then plunged in gloom again, but always fighting for 
time and for some lucky stroke of fortune, such as the death of a hostile 
sovereign with its attendant interruption or change of policy. The story 
is too crowded, too replete with incident, to be condensed here. Only the 
general impression of a prolonged, racking, desperate struggle can be 
indicated. Gritty, cool, alert, and agile, Frederick managed to hold on 
until his enemies were willing to make peace. 

He came out of this war with his territories intact but not increased. 
Silesia he retained, but Saxony he was forced to relinquish. ^^^ ^^ ^^^ 
He came out of it, also, prematurely old, hard, bitter, mis- Seven Years' 
anthropic, but he had made upon the world an indelible im- 
pression of his genius. His people had been decimated and appalHngly 



i6 



THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 



Frederick in 
time of 
peace 



impoverished; nevertheless he was the victor and great was his renown. 
Frederick had conquered Silesia in a month and had then spent many 
years fighting to retain it. All that he had won was fame, but that he 
enjoyed in full and overflowing measure. 

Frederick lived twenty-three years longer, years of unremitting and 
very fruitful toil. In a hundred ways he sought to hasten the recupera- 
tion and the de- 
velopment of his 
sorely visited 
land, draining marshes, clear- 
ing forests, encouraging in- 
dustries, opening schools, 
welcoming and favoring im- 
migrants from other countries. 
Indeed over 300,000 of these 
responded to the various in- 
ducements offered, and Fred- 
erick founded more than 800 
villages. He reorganized the 
army, replenished the public 
treasury, remodeled the legal 
code. In religious affairs he 
was the most tolerant ruler in 
Europe, giving refuge to the 
Jesuits when they were driven 
out of Catholic countries — 
France, Portugal, Spain — and 
when their order was abolished 
by the Pope himself. "In 
Prussia," said he, "every one 
has the right to win salvation 
in his own way." 

In practice this was about the only indubitable right the individual 

possessed, for Frederick's government was unlimited, al- 

character of though frequently enlightened, despotism. His was an 

his govern- absolute monarchy, surrounded by a privileged nobihty, 
ment . . - , tt- 

restmg upon an impotent mass of peasantry. His was a 

mihtarist state and only nobles could become general officers. Labori- 




Frederick the Grjeat 

From an engraving by Cunejo, after the painting 

by Cunningham. 



FREDERICK AS AUTOCRAT 17 

ous, rising at three in summer, at four in the winter, and holding himself 
tightly to his mission as "first servant to the King of Prussia," Fred- 
erick knew more drudgery than pleasure. But he was a tyrant to his 
finger tips, and we do not find in the Prussia of his day any room made 
for that spirit of freedom which was destined in the immediate future to 
wrestle in Europe with this outworn system of autocracy. 

In 1772 the conqueror of Silesia proceeded to gather new laurels of a 
similar kind. In conjunction with the monarchs of Russia and Austria 
he partially dismembered Poland, a crime of which the j,^^ g^.^^ 
world has not yet heard the last. The task was easy of partition of 
accomplishment, as Poland was defenseless. Frederick 
frankly admitted that the act was that of brigands, and his opinion 
has been ratified by the general agreement of posterity. 

Wlien Frederick died in 17S6, at the age of seventy-four, he left his 
kingdom nearly doubled in size and with a population more than doubled. 
In all his actions he thought, not of Germany, but of pj-ederick 
Prussia, always Prussia. Germany was an abstraction the Great 
that had no hold upon his practical mind. He considered ^" ermany 
the German language boorish, "a jargon, devoid of every grace," and 
he was sure that Germany had no literature worthy of the name. Never- 
theless, he was regarded throughout German lands, beyond Prussia, as 
a national hero, and he filled the national thought and imagination as 
no other German had done since Luther. His personality, his ideas, 
and his methods became an enduring and potent factor in the develop- 
ment of Germany. 

But the trouble with despotism as a form of government is that a 

strong or enlightened despot may so easily be succeeded by a feeble 

or foolish one, as proved to be the case when Frederick 

died and was succeeded in 1786 by Frederick William II, despot 

under whom and under whose successor came evil days, succeeds a 
1 1 • 1 1 1 •,!• 1 strong one 

contrastmg most unpleasantly with the brilliant ones that 

had gone before. 

Lying beyond Austria and Prussia, stretching away indefinitely 
into the east, was the other remaining great power in 
European politics, Russia. 

Though the largest state on the continent, Russia did not enter 
upon the scene of European politics as a factor of importance until very 
late, indeed until the eighteenth century. During that century she took 



i8 THE OLD RfiGIME IN EUROPE 

her place among the great European powers and her influence in the 
world has gone on increasing down to the present moment. Her previous 
Race and history had been pecuUar, differing in many and fundamen- 
Religion ^^^1 respects from that of her western neighbors. She had 

Uved apart, unnoticed and unknown. She was connected with Europe 
by two ties, those of race and religion. The Russians were a Slavic 
people, related to the Poles, the Bohemians, the Serbs, and the other 
branches of that great family which spreads over Eastern Europe. And 
as early as the tenth century they had been converted to Christianity, 
not to that form that prevailed in the West, but to the Orthodox Greek 
form, which had its seat in Constantinople. The missionaries who had 
brought religion and at the same time the beginnings of civiUzation had 
come from that city. After the conquest of Constantinople by the in- 
fidel Turks in 1453 the Russians considered themselves its legitimate 
heirs, the representatives of its ideas and traditions. Constantinople 
and the Eastern Empire of which it had been the capital exercised over 
their imaginations a spell that has only increased with time. 

But the great central fact of Russian history for hundreds of years 3 
was not her connection with Europe, which, after all, was slight, but her 
connection with Asia, which was close and profound in its 
vaded and effects. The Principality of Muscovy, as Russia was then 

conquered by called from its capital Moscow, was conquered by the 
Asiatic tribes 

Mongols, barbarians from Asia, in the thirteenth century, 

and for nearly three hundred years Russian princes paid tribute and made 
occasional visits of submission to the far-off Great Khan. Though con- 
stantly resenting this subjection, they did not escape its effects. They 
themselves became half-Asiatic. The men of Russia dressed in Oriental 
fashion, wearing the long robes with long sleeves, the turbans and slip- 
pers of the East. They wore their hair and beards long. The women were 
kept secluded and were heavily veiled when in public. A young girl 
saw her husband for the first time the day of her marriage. There was 
no such thing as society as we understand the term. The government 
was an Oriental tyranny, unrestrained, regardless of human life. In ad- 
dressing the ruler a person must completely prostrate himself, his fore- 
head touching the floor; a difficult as well as a degrading attitude for 
one human being to assume toward another. 

In time the Russians threw off the Mongol domination, after ter- 
rible struggles, and themselves in turn conquered northern Asia, that 



GERMANY IN 1789 

Hohon^oUcrn Lands Wc Uin T.n n.la Wdolshach Lan.ls 

I Prussia I I Albcrtine II Bavaria 

I I Frnnconlan line I I Ernestine I I Palatinate 

Ol.Ionbiir^ Lands Hnps buTiS T. anda 

I I Denmark I I Imperial Cities I 1 

1 I I llolstein and I 1 Ecclesiastical | | 

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20 20 -W 60 80 lOO 







Scale of Milr 




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A J ^\-_ ( ^VlS^^ \ I'lisburgV 

U..rgl,ausen ^ ^ ,^ j^ I 

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lienor Ntrusttdt^y' 



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v^-^tt.-eij. 



20 



I THE YOUTH OF PETER THE GREAT 19 

is, Siberia. A new royal house came to the throne in 16 13, the House of 
Romanoff, still the reigning family of Russia. 

But the Russians continued to have only the feeblest connection with 
Europe, knowing Uttle of its civiUzation, caring less, content to vegetate 
iji indolence and obscurity. Out of this dull and laggard p^^gj. ^j^^ 
state they were destined to be roughly and emphatically Great, 1672- 
roused by one of the most energetic rulers known to his- 
tory, Peter the Great, whose reign of thirty-six years (1689-1725) marks 
a tremendous epoch, both by what it actually accomplished and by what 
it indicated ought to be the goal of national endeavor. 

As a boy Peter had been given no serious instruction, no training in 
self-control, but had been allowed to run wild, and had picked up all 
sorts of acquaintances and companions, many of them for- Peter's 
eigners. It was the chance association with Europeans boyhood 
living in the foreign quarter of Moscow that proved the decisive fact of 
his life, shaping his entire career. From them he got a most irregular, 
haphazard, but original education, learning a Httle German, a little 
Dutch, some snatches of science, arithmetic, geometry. His chief boy- 
ish interest was in mechanics and its relation to the military art. With 
him playing soldier was more serious than with most boys. He used to 
build wooden fortresses, surrounded with walls and moats and bastions. 
Some of his friends would defend the redoubt while he and the others 
attacked it. Sometimes lives were lost, always some were wounded. 
Such are the fortunes of war, though not usually of juvenile war. "The 
boy is amusing himself," was the comment of his sister, who was exer- 
cising the regency in his name. Passionately fond of military games, 
Peter was also absorbingly interested in boats and ships, and eagerly 
learned all he could of navigation, which was not much, for the arts of 
shipbuilding and navigation were in their very infancy in Russia. 

Learning that his sister Sophia was planning to ignore his right to 
the throne and to become ruler herself, he dropped his sham fights and 
his sailing, swept his sister aside into a nunnery, and assumed control of 
the state. Convinced that Europe was in every way supe- The acces- 
rior to Russia, that Russia had everything to gain and ^'°° ®^ ^^^^^ 
nothing to lose from a knowledge of the ways and institutions of the 
western countries, Peter's pohcy from the beginning to the end of 
his reign was to bring about the closest possible connection between 
his backward country and the progressive and briUiant civiHzation 



20 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

which had been built up in England, France, Holland, Italy, and 
Germany. 

But even with the best intentions this was not an easy task. For Rus- 
sia had no point of physical contact with the nations of Western Europe. 
The policy ^^^ could not freely communicate with them, for between 
of the " open her and them was a wall consisting of Sweden, Poland, 
win ow ^^^ Turkey. Russia was nearly a land-locked country. 

Sweden controlled all that coast line along the Baltic which is now 
Russian, Turkey controlled all the coast line of the Black Sea. The only 
port Russia possessed was far to the north, at Archangel, and this was 
frozen during nine months of the year. To communicate freely and easily 
with the West, Russia must "open a window" somewhere, as Peter ex- 
pressed it. Then the light could stream in. He must have an ice-free 
port in European waters. To secure this he fought repeated campaigns 
against Turkey and Sweden. With the latter power there was inter- 
mittent war for twenty years, very successful in the end, though only 
after distressing reverses. He conquered the Baltic Provinces from 
Sweden, Courland, Esthonia, and Livonia, and thus secured a long coast 
line. Russia might now have a navy and a merchant fleet and sea- 
borne commerce. "It is not land I want, but water," Peter had said. 
He now had enough, at least to begin with. 

Meanwhile he had sent fifty young Russians of the best families to 
England, Holland, and Venice to learn the arts and sciences of the West, 
Peter's especially shipbuilding and fortifications. Later he had 

travels in gone himself for the same purpose, to study on the spot the 
civilization whose superiority he recognized and intended to 
impose upon his own country, if that were possible. This was a famous 
voyage. Traveling under the strictest incognito, as "Peter Mikail- 
ovitch," he donned laborer's clothes and worked for months in the ship- 
yards of Holland and England. He was interested in everything. He 
visited mills and factories of every kind, asking innumerable questions: 
"What is this for? How does that work?" He made a sheet of paper 
wdth his own hands. During his hours of recreation he visited museums, 
theaters, hospitals, galleries. He saw printing presses in operation, 
attended lectures on anatomy, studied surgery a little, and even ac- 
quired some proficiency in the humble and useful art of pulling teeth. 
He bought collections of laws, and models of all sorts of machines, and 
engaged many officers, mechanics, printers, architects, sailors, and work- 



THE REFORMS OF PETER THE GREAT 21 

men of every kind, to go to Russia to engage in the task of imparting 
instruction to a nation which, in Peter's opinion, needed it and should 
receive it, willy-nilly. 

Peter was called home suddenly by the news of a revolt among the 
imperial troops devoted to the old regime and apprehensive of the com- 
ing innovations. They were punished with, every refine- suppresses 
ment of savage cruelty, their regiments disbanded, and a revolt at 
veritable reign of terror preceded the introduction of the 
new system. 

Then the Czar began with energy his transformation of Russia, as 
he described it. The process continued all through his reign. It was not 
an elaborate, systematic plan, deliberately worked out beforehand, but 
first this reform, then that, w^as adopted and enforced, and in the end 
the sum total of all these measures of detail touched the national life 
at nearly every point. Some of them concerned manners pg^er's 
and customs, others economic matters, others matters measures 
purely poHtical. Peter at once fell upon the long beards ° ^ °"" 
and Oriental costumes, which, in his opinion, symbolized the conserva- 
tism of Old Russia, which he was resolved to shatter. Arming himself 
with a pair of shears, he himself clipped the liberal beards and moustaches 
of many of his nobles, and cut their long coats at the knee. They must 
set the style and the style must be that of France and Germany. Hav- 
ing given this sensational exhibition of his imperial purpose, he then 
compromised somewhat, allowing men to wear their beards long, but only 
on condition of submitting to a graduated tax upon these ornaments. 
The approbation of the emperor, the compulsion of fashion, combined 
with considerations of economy, rapidly wrought a surprising change in 
the appearance of the manhood of Russia. Barbers and tailors were 
stationed at the entrances of towns to facilitate the process by slashing 
the offending members until they conformed to European standards. 
Women were forbidden to wear the veil and were released from the cap- 
tivity of the harem, or terem, as it was called in Russia. Peter had 
attended the "assembUes" of France and England and had seen men and 
women dancing and conversing together in public. He now ordered the 
husbands and fathers of Russia to bring their wives and daughters to 
all social entertainments. The adjustments were awkward at first, the 
women frequently standing or sitting stiffly apart at one end of the room, 
the men smoking and drinking by themselves at the other. But finally 



22 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

society as understood in Europe emerged from these temporary and 
amusing difficulties. Peter gave lessons in dancing to some of his nobles, 
having himself acquired that accomplishment while on his famous trip. 
They were expected, in turn, to pass the art on to others. 

The organs of government, national and local, were remodeled by 
the adoption of forms and methods known to Sweden, Germany, and 
Creation of other countries, and the state became more efhcient and at 
an army and the same time more powerful. The army was enlarged, 
"^^^ equipped, and trained mainly in imitation of Germany. A 

navy was created and the importance of the sea to the general life of the 
nation gradually dawned upon the popular intelligence. The economic 
development of the country was begun, factories were established, mines 
were opened, and canals were cut. The church was brought into closer 
subjection to the state. Measures were taken against vagabondage and 
robbery, widely prevalent evils. Education of a practical sort was en- 
couraged. The Julian calendar was introduced and is still in force, 
though the other nations of Europe have since adopted another and 
more accurate chronology. Peter even undertook to reform the lan- 
guage of Russia, striking out eight of the more cumbersome letters of 
the alphabet and simplifying the form of some of the others. 

All these changes encountered resistance, resistance born of indo- 
lence, of natural conservatism, of religious scruples — was it not impious 
Resistance ^°^ Holy Russia to abandon her native customs and to imi- 
to these tate the heretics of the West? But Peter went on smashing 

re orms j^-^ ^^^ through as best he could, crushing opposition by 

fair means and by foul, for the quality of the means was a matter of in- 
difference to him, if only they were successful. Here we have the spec- 
tacle of a man who, himself a semi-barbarian, was bent upon civihzing 
men more barbarous than he. 

As the ancient capital, Moscow, was the stronghold of stiff conserv- 
atism, was wedded to the old ideas and customs, Peter resolved to build 
The creation ^ ^^^ capital on the Baltic. There, on islands and marshes 
of Saint at the mouth of a river which frequently overflowed, he built 

e ers urg ^^ frightful cost in human life and suffering the city of 
St. Petersburg. Everything had to be created literally from the ground 
up. Forests of piles had to be driven into the slime to the solid earth 
beneath to furnish the secure foundations. Tens of thousands of sol- 
diers and peasants were drafted for the work. At first they had no im- 



THE FOUNDING OF SAINT PETERSBURG 



23 



plements, but were forced to dig with sticks and carry the rubbish away 
in their coats. No adequate provisions were made for them; they slept 
unprotected in the open air, their food was insufficient, and they died by 
thousands, only to be replaced by other thousands. All through the 
reign the desperate, rough 
process went on. The will of 
the autocrat, rich in expedi- 
ents, triumphed over all obsta- 
cles. Every great landowner 
was required to build in the 
city a residence of a certain 
size and style. No ship might 
enter without bringing a cer- 
tain quantity of stone for 
building purposes. St. Peters- 
burg was cut by numerous 
canals, as were the cities of 
Holland. The Czar required 
the nobles to possess boats. 
Some of them, not proficient 
in the handling of these novel 
craft, were drowned. Toward 
the close of his reign Peter 
transferred the government to 
this city which stood on the 
banks of the Neva, a monu- 
ment to his imagination, his energy, and his persistence, a city with no 
hampering traditions, with no past, but with only an untrammeled fu- 
ture, an appropriate expression of the spirit of the New Russia which 
Peter was laboring to create. 

He was, indeed, a strange leader for a people which needed above 
all to shake itself free from what was raw and crude, he was himself so 
raw and crude. A man of violent passions, capable and Peter's 
guilty of orgies of dissipation, of acts of savage cruelty, character 
hard and fiendish in his treatment even of those nearest to him, his sister, 
his wife, and his son, using willingly as instruments of progress the atro- 
cious knout and wheel and stake, Peter was neither a model ruler, nor a 
model man. Yet, with all these traits of primal barbarism in his nature, 




Peter the Great 
From an engraving by Anderloni. 



24 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

he had many redeeming points. Good humored, frank, and compan- 
ionable under ordinary circumstances, he was entirely natural, as loyal 
in his friendships as he was bitter in his enmities. Masterful, titanic, 
there was in him a wild vitality, an immense energy, and he was. great in 
the singleness of his aim. He did not succeed in transforming Russia; 
that could not be accomplished in one generation or in two. But he 
left an army of 200,000 men, he connected Russia with the sea by the 
coast line of the Baltic, thus opening a contact with countries that were 
more advanced, intellectually and socially, and he raised a standard and 
started a tradition. 

Then followed upon his death, a series of mediocre rulers, under 
whom it seTsmed likely that the ground gained might be lost. But under 
Peter's Elizabeth (i 741-1762) Russia played an important part in 

successors ^j-^g Seven Years' War, thus showing her altered position in 
Europe, and with the advent of Catherine II (i 762-1 796) the process of 
Europeanizing Russia and of expanding her territories and magnifying 
her position in international politics was resumed with vigor and carried 
out with success. 

Catherine was a German princess, the wife of the Czar Peter III, 
who, proving a worthless ruler, was deposed, after a reign of a few 
Accession of months, then done to death, probably with the connivance 
Catherine of his wife. Catherine became empress, and for thirty-four 
years ruled Russia with an iron hand. Fond of pleasure, 
fond of work, a woman of intellectual tastes or at least pretensions, which 
she satisfied by intimate correspondence with Voltaire, Diderot, and 
other French philosophers of the day, being rewarded for her condescen- 
sion and her favors by their enthusiastic praise of her as the "Semir- 
amis of the North," Catherine passes as one of the enlightened despots 
of her century. Being of western birth, she naturally sympathized with 
the policy of introducing western civilization into Russia, and gave that 
policy her vigorous support. 

But her chief significance in history is her foreign poHcy. Three 
countries, we have seen, stood between Russia and the countries of 
Western Europe, Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. Peter had conquered 
Catherine's ^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^ secured the water route by the Baltic. Cathe- 
foreign rine devoted her entire reign to conquering the other two. 

po icy rj,^^ former she accomplished by infamous means and with 

rare cpmpleteness. By the end of her reign Poland had been utterly 



CATHERINE THE GREAT 



25 



destroyed and Russia had pushed her boundaries far westward until they 
touched those of Prussia and Austria. Catherine was not able to dis- 
member Turkey as Poland was dismembered, but she gained from her 
the Crimea and the northern 
shores of the Black Sea from 
the Caucasus to the Dniester. 
She had even dreamed of driv- 
ing the Turk entirely from 
Europe and of extending her 
own influence down to the 
Mediterranean by the estab- 
lishment of a Byzantine em- 
pire that should be dependent 
upon Russia. But any dream 
of getting to Constantinople 
was a dream indeed, as the 
troubled history of a subse- 
quent century was to show. 
Henceforth, however, Europe 
could count on one thing with 
certainty, namely, that Russia 
would be a factor to be consid- 
ered in any rearrangement of 
the map of the Balkan peninsula, in any determination of the Eastern 
question. 

This rise of Russia, like the rise of Prussia, to a position of command- 
ing importance in European politics, was the work of the eighteenth 
century. Both were characteristic products of that age. 

The more one examines in general the governments of Europe in the 
eighteenth century, and the policies which they followed or attempted 
to follow, the less is one impressed with either their wisdom ^ow tone of 
or their morality. The control was everywhere in the European 
hands of the few and was everywhere directed to the ad- ^° ^ ^^^ 
vantage of the few. The idea that it was the first duty of the state to 
assure, if possible, the welfare of the great majority of the jj^g ■^■^^ ^^ 
people was not the idea recognized in actual practice. The aggrandize- 
first duty of the state was to increase its dominions by ™^° 
hook or crook, and to provide for the satisfaction of the rulers and the 




Catherine II 
After the portrait by Shebanoff. 



26 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

privileged classes. One could find in all Europe hardly a trace of what 
we call democracy. Europe was organized aristocratically, and for the 
Aristocracies benefit of aristocracies. This was true even in such a coun- 
everywhere try as England, which had a parliament and established 
in power liberties; even in republics, like Venice or Genoa or the 

cantons of Switzerland. 

The condition of the vast mass of the people in every country was 
the thing least considered. It was everywhere deplorable, though vary- 
Deolorable '^^^ more or less in different countries. The masses, who 
condition of were peasants, were weighed down and hemmed in by 
the masses \Qy^^ ^j^^j institutions and customs that took no account of 
their well-being. In one way or another they were outrageously taxed, 
so that but a small fraction of what they earned went for their own sup- 
port. Throughout most of Europe they did not possess what we regard 
Serfdom ^^ ^^^ mere beginnings of personal liberty, for, except in 

widely prev- England and France, serfdom, with all its paralyzing re- 

* strictions, was in force. No one dreamed that the people 

were entitled to education so that they might be better equipped for 
life. The great substructure of European society was an unhappy, unfree, 
unprotected, undeveloped mass of human beings, to whom opportunity 
for growth and improvement was closed on every side. 

If the governments of Europe did not seriously consider the interest 
of the most numerous and weakest class, on whose well-being de- 
A gloomy pended absolutely the ultimate well-being of the nations, 
outlook (jj(j l^jjgy discharge their other obligations with any greater 

understanding or sense of justice? It cannot be said that they did. 
The distempers in every state were numerous and alarming. The writ- 
ings of contemporaries abound in gloomy prophecies. There was a 
widespread feehng that revolutions, catastrophes, ruin were impending, 
state finance ^^^^ ^^^ body politic was nowhere in sound condition, 
grossly mis- Excessive expenditures for the maintenance of extrava- 
manage ^^^^ courts, for sumptuous buildings, for favorites of every 

stripe and feather, excessive expenditures for armies and for wars, 
which were frequent, resulted in increasing disorder in the finances 
of the various nations. States resorted more and more to loans with 
the result that the income had to go for the payment of the interest. 
Deficits were chronic, and no country except England had a budget, 
or public and official statement of expenditures and receipts. Taxes 



! THE DESPOTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 27 

were, increasing and were detestably distributed. Everywhere in Europe 
the richer a man was the less he' paid proportionately, crushing 
As new taxes were imposed, exemptions, complete or par- taxation of 
tial, went with them, and the exemptions were for the ^ masses 
nobihty and, in part, for the middle classes, where such existed. Crush- 
ing therefore was the burden of the lower orders. It was truly a vicious 
circle. 

These evils were so apparent that now and then they prompted the 
governing authorities to attempt reform. Several rulers in various coun- 
tries made earnest efforts to improve conditions. These Benevolent 
were the "benevolent despots" of the eighteenth century despotism 
who tried reform from above before the French tried it from below. On 
the whole they had no great or permanent success, and the need of 
thoroughgoing changes remained to trouble the future. 

Not only were the governments of Europe generally inefficient in all 
that concerned the full, symmetrical development of the economic, in- 
tellectual, and moral resources of the people, not only 

, „ . ^ ■ ^^ Character of 

were they generally repressive and oppressive, allowing the govern- 
little scope to the principle of liberty, but they were, in ^^^^^ of 
their relations to each other, unprincipled, unscrupulous. 
The state was conceived as force, not at all as a moral being, subject to 
moral obligations and restraints. The glory of rulers consisted in extend- 
ing the boundaries of their states, regardless of the rights of Material 
other peoples, regardless even of the rights of other rulers, success the 
The code that governed their relations with each other ard of con- 
was primitive indeed. Any means were legitimate, success ^^^^ 
was the only standard of right or wrong. "He who gains nothing, loses," 
wrote Catherine of Russia, one of the "enlightened" despots. The domi- 
nant idea in all government circles was that the greatness of the state 
was in proportion to its territorial extent, not in proportion to the free- 
dom, the prosperity, the education of its people. The prevalence of this 
idea brought it about that every nation sought to be ready to take ad- 
vantage of any weakness or distress that might appear in ^j^^ j^j^j^, 
the situation of its neighbors. Armies must be constantly lessness of 
at hand and diplomacy must be ready for any scurvy trick °^°"^'^'^^ 
or infamous crime that might promise hope of gain. It followed that 
treaties were to be broken whenever there was any advantage in break- 
ing them. "It is a mistake to break your word without reason," said 



28 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

Frederick II, "for thus you gain the reputation of being hght and fickle." 
To keep faith with each other was -no duty of rulers. There was conse- 
quently no certainty in international agreements. 

This indifference to solemn promises was nothing new. The eigh- 
teenth century was full of flagrant violations of most explicit interna- 
tional agreements. There was no honor among nations. No state had 
any rights which any other state was bound to respect. These monarchs, 
"enlightened" and "benevolent" or not, as the case might be, all agreed 
The insecu- ^^^^ ^^^^ ruled by divine right, by the will of God. Yet 
rity of this decidedly imposing origin of their authority gave them 

^ ^ ^^ no sense of security in their relations with each other, 

nor did it give to their reigns any exceptional purity or unworldly char- 
acter. The maxims of statecraft which they followed were of the earth, 
earthy. While bent upon increasing their own power they did not neglect 
the study of the art of undermining each other's power, however divinely 
buttressed in theory it might be. Monarchs were dethroned, states were 
extinguished, boundaries were changed and changed again, as the result 
Wars of as- ^^ aggressive wars, during the eighteenth century. More- 
gression over, the wars of that time were famous for the exactions of 

numerous ^^^ victors and for the scandalous fortunes made by some 
of the commanders. It was not the French Revolutionists nor w'as it 
Napoleon who introduced these customs into Europe. They could not, 
had they tried, have lowered the tone of war or statecraft in Europe. At 
the worst they might only imitate their predecessors. 

The Old Regime in Europe was to be brought tumbling down in 

unutterable confusion as a result of the storm which was brewing in 

France and which we are now to study. But that regime 
The Old , , , , . , , , 1 • , , 7 

Regime had been undermmed, the props that supported it had been 

everywhere destroyed, by its own official beneficiaries and defenders. 
The Old Regime was disloyal to the very principles on 
which it rested, respect for the established order, for what was old and 
traditional, for what had come down from the past, regard for legal- 
No honor ^^y^ ^°^ engagements, loyalty to those in authority. How 
among little regard the monarchs of Europe themselves had foi 

monarc s principles which they were accustomed to pronounce sacred, 

for principles in which alone lay their own safety, was shown by the 
part they played in the great events of the eighteenth century already 
alluded to, the war of the Austrian Succession, and the Partition of 



THE DESPOTS AS LAND-GRABBERS 



29 




Prussia 

grabs 

Silesia 



Poland. By the first the ruler of Austria, Maria Theresa, was robbed 
of the large and valuable province of Silesia by Prussia, aided by France, 

both of which 
states had re- 
cently signed a 
peculiarly solemn treaty called 
the Pragmatic Sanction, by 
which her rights had been 
explicitly and emphatically 
recognized. Frederick II, 
however, wanted the province, 
took it, and kept it. This case 
shows how lightly monarchs 
regarded legal obligations, 
when they conflicted with 
their ambitions. 

The other case, the Parti- 
tion of Poland, was the most 
iniquitous act of the century. 
Poland was in geographical 
extent the largest state in 
Europe, next to Russia. Its 
history ran far back. But its 
government was utterly weak. 

Therefore in The extinc- 
1772 Prussia, Austria, and Russia attacked it for no cause save tion of 
their own cupidity, and tore great fragments away, annexing ° 
them to their own territories. Twenty years later they completed the 
process in two additional partitions, in 1793 and 1795, thus entirely anni- 
hilating an ancient state. This shows how much regard the monarchs 
of Europe had for established ijistitutions, for established authorities. 

Two things only counted in Old Europe — force and will, the will of 
the sovereign. But force and will may be used quite as easily for revolu- 
tion, for the overthrow of what is old and sacred, as for its ^^^^^ ^j^^ 
preservation. There need be no surprise at anything that order of the 
we may find Napoleon doing. He had a sufficient pattern ^^ 
and exemplar in Frederick the Great and in Catherine of Russia, only 
recently deceased when his meteoric career began. 



Maria Theresa 

From a pastel in the possession of the Grand Duke 

Frederick, Vienna. 



30 THE OLD REGIME IN EUROPE 

The eighteenth century attained its legitimate- cUmax in its closing 

decade, a memorable period in the history of the world. 
The crash i ,^1 i -i-> ^ • • i-i 111 1 i i 

of the Old The Old Regime m Europe was rudely shattered by the 

Regime in overthrow of the Old Regime in France, which country, 
Europe , . . , . . , . , 

by its astonishing actions, was to dominate the next 

quarter of a century. 

REFERENCES 

Age or William Pitt: Larson, Short History of England, Chap. XXI; Macaulay, 
Essays, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 

William Pitt and the Conquest or Canada: Beard, Introduction to the English 
Historians, pp. 452-465; F. Harrison, Chatham, pp. 94-113; Green, Short History of 
the English People, pp. 745-757. 

The Seven Years' War and the Independence of the United States: Green, 
pp. 757-786. 

The Industrial Revolution and the American Revolution: Cheyney, Short 
History of England, pp. 576-596. 

British Colonial Expansion: Seeley, Expansion of England, Lect. IV. 

Frederick William I, the Father of Frederick the Great: Henderson, 
Short History of Germany, II, 87-104; Marriott and Robertson, The Evolution of 
Prussia, pp. 101-111; Lavisse, The Youth of Frederick the Great, Chap. II; Carlyle, 
Frederick the Great, Vol. I, Book IV, Chaps. Ill and IV. 

The Youth of Frederick the Great: Henderson, Vol. II, pp. 111-122; Lavisse, 
Tlie Youth of Frederick the Great; R. P. Dunn Pattison, Leading Figures in European 
History, pp. 329-357; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, 
Vol. I, pp. 65-67. 

The Wars of Frederick the Great: Henderson, Vol. II, Chap. IV; Priest, Ger- 
many Since 1740, pp. 10-22. 

Frederick the Great in Time of Peace: Henderson, Vol. II, Chap. V; Priest, 
pp. 23-34. 

Frederick the Great and the First Partition of Poland: Perkins, France 
under Louis XV, Vol. I, Chap. XXI; Rambaud, The History of Russia, Vol. II, pp. 
122-130. 

Russia before Peter the Great: Rambaud, Vol. I, Chap. XX; Morfill, Story 
of Russia, Chaps. V and VI. 

Peter the Great's Travels in the West: Oscar Browning, Peter the Great, 
Chaps. X-XII; Motley, Peter the Great, pp. 7-27; Rambaud, Vol. I, Chap. XXII. 

Reforms of Peter the Great: Wakeman, The Ascendancy of France, pp. 299-310; 
Browning, Peter the Great, Chap. XV; Schuyler, Peter the Great, Vol. I, Chap. XXV; 
Vol. II, Chaps. LVII and LXIII. 

The Founding of St. Petersburg: Schuyler, Vol. II, Chap. XLVI; Browning, 
Chap. XX. 

The Three Partitions of Poland: W. A. Phillips, Poland, Chaps. V and VI; 
W. R. Morfill, The Story of Poland, Chap. XL 







^ >r^„ '-r^ ■■■■\ K>>^ -i^Piiftto^^i' 






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THE PARTITION 
OF POLAND 



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□ Torriiories taken , 1 Territories taken 
by Russia I 1 by Austria 

I I Territories taken by Prussia 




P O 

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povu' 



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Long. East 24- of Greenwoch 



CHAPTER II 
THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

The French Revolution brought with it a new conception of the state, 
new principles of politics and of society, a new outlook upon Hfe, a new 
faith which seized the imagination of multitudes, inspiring The French 
them with intense enthusiasm, arousing boundless hopes, Revolution 
and precipitating a long and passionate struggle with all those who 
feared or hated innovation, who were satisfied with things as they were, 
who found their own conditions of life comfortable and attracts 
did not wish to be disturbed. Soon France and Europe liberals 
were divided into two camps, the reformers and the con- 
servatives, those believing in radical changes along many lines and those 
who believed in preserving what was old and tried, either because thty 
profited by it or because they felt that men were happier and repels 
and more prosperous in living under conditions and with conservatives 
institutions to which they were accustomed than under those that might 
be ideally more perfect but would at any rate be strange and novel and 
uncertain. 

In order to understand the French Revolution it is necessary to ex- 
amine the conditions and institutions of France out of which it grew; in 
other words, the Old Regime. Only thus can we get our The Revolu- 

sense of perspective, our standard of values and of criticism. *^.°f » tran- 
ir f J sition from 

The Revolution accomplished a sweeping transformation in feudahsm to 
the life of France. Putting it in a single phrase it accom- democracy 
phshed the transition from the feudal system of the preceding centuries 
to the democratic system of the modern world. The entire structure of 
the French state and of French society was remodeled and planted on 
new and far-reaching principles. 

The essence of the feudal system was class divisions and acknowledged 
privileges for all classes above the lowest. The essence of Mature of 
the new system is the removal of class distinctions, the the feudal 
abolition of privileges, the introduction of the principle of ^^^ *°^ 
the equality of men, wherever possible. 

31 



32 . THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

What strikes one most in contemplating the Old Regime is the 
prevalence and the oppressiveness of the privileges that various 
classes enjoyed. Society was simply honeycombed with 
Regime them. They affected life constantly and at every point, 

based on j^ jg j^q^ ^^.n easy society to describe in a few words, for 

the variations were almost endless. But, broadly speak- 
ing, and leaving details aside, French society was graded from top to 
bottom, and each grade differed, in legal rights, in opportunities for 
enjoyment and development, in power. 

The system culminated in the monarch, the lofty and gHttering head 
of the state, the embodiment of the might and the majesty of the 
Divine right nation. The king claimed to rule by the will of God, that 
monarchy jg^ ^y divine right, not at all by the consent of the people. 
He was responsible to no one but God. Consequently in the actual 
conduct of his office he was subject to no control. He was an absolute 
monarch. He could do as he chose. It was for the nation to obey. The 
will of the king and that alone was, in theory, the only thing that counted. 
It determined what the law should be that should govern twenty-five 
milhon Frenchmen in their daily Hves. "This thing is legal because I 
wish it," said Louis XVI, thus stating in a single phrase the nature of 
the monarchy, the theory, and the practice also, if the monarch happened 
to be a strong man. The king made the laws, he levied the taxes, he 
spent them as he saw fit, he declared wars, made peace, contracted al- 
liances according to his own inclination. There was in 
arch abso- theory no restriction upon his power, and all his subjects 
lute in ig^y jj^ ^j^g hollow of his hand. He could seize their prop- 

erty; he could imprison them by a mere order, a lettre de 
cachet, without trial, and for such a period as he desired ; he could con- 
trol, if not their thoughts, at least the expression of them, for his censor- 
ship of the press, whether employed in the publication of books or 
newspapers, could muzzle them absolutely. 

So commanding a figure required a broad and ample stage for the 
part he was to play, a rich and spacious background. Never was a being 
more sumptuously housed. While Paris was the capital of France, the 
The splendor ^^"§ resided twelve miles away amid the splendors of Ver- 
of his sailles. There he lived and moved and had his being in a 

residence palace that was the envy of every other king in Christen- 

dom, a monumental pile, with its hundreds of rooms, its chapel, theater, 



THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES 



33 




34 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

dining halls, salons, and endless suites of apartments for its distinguished 
occupants, the royal family, its hundreds of servants, and its guests. 
This mammoth residence had been built a century before at an expense 
of about a hundred million dollars in terms of our money to-day, an im- 
posing setting for a most brilliant and numerous court, lending itself, 
with its miles of corridors, of walks through endless formal gardens 
The Court Studded with statues, fountains, and artificial lakes, to all 
of Versailles ^\-^q pomp and pageantry of power. For the court which so 
dazzled Europe was composed of 18,000 people, perhaps 16,000 of whom 
were attached to the personal service of the king and his family, 2,000 
being courtiers, the favored guests of the house, nobles who were en- 
gaged in a perpetual round of pleasures and who were also busily feather- 
ing their own nests by soHciting, of course in polished and subtle ways, 
the favors that streamed from a lavish throne. Luxury was everywhere 
the prevailing note. Well may the occupants of the palace have con- 
sidered themselves, in spirit and in truth, the darhngs of the gods, for 
earth had not anything to show more costly. The king, the queen, the 
royal children, the king's brothers and sisters and aunts all had their 
separate establishments under the spacious roof. The queen alone had 
500 servants. The royal stables contained nearly 1,900 horses and more 
A most ex- than 200 carriages, and the annual cost of this service alone 
pensive was the equivalent of $4,000,000. The king's table cost 

uxury more than a million and a half. As gaiety was unconfined, 

so necessarily was the expediture that kept it going, for every one in 
this household secured what, in the parlance of our vulgar democracy, 
is called a handsome "rake-off." Thus ladies-in-waiting secured about' 
$30,000 each by the privilege they enjoyed of selling the candles that 
had once been lighted but not used up. Queen Marie Antoinette had 
four pairs of shoes a week, which constituted a profitable business for 
somebody. In 1789 the total cost of all this riot of extravagance 
amounted to not far from $20,000,000. No wonder that men spoke of 
the court as the veritable nation's grave. 

Not only were the king's household expenses pitched to this exalted 
scale, but, in addition, he gave money or appointments or pensions freely. 
The King a ^^ ^° ^^^ manner born, to those who gained his favor. It 
real Lord has been estimated that in the fifteen years between 1774, 
°"°^" when Louis XVI came to the throne, and 1789, when the 

whirlwind began, the King thus presented to favorites the equivalent 



THE INEFFICIENCY OF THE GOVERNMENT 



35 



of more than a hundred million dollars of our money. For those who 
basked in such sunshine it was unquestionably a golden age. 

Such was the dazzling apex of a state edifice that was rickety in the 
extreme. For the government of France was ill-constructed and the 
times were decidedly out of joint. That government was Defective 
not a miracle of design, but of the lack of it. Complicated, organization 
ill-adjusted, the various branches dimly defined or over- 
lapping, it was thoroughly unscientific and inefficient. The king was as- 




The Coach Ornamented with Syubols in which Louis XVI went to his 

Coronation in 1774 

From E. F. Henderson's Symbol and Satire in the French Revolution. 

sisted by five councils which framed the laws, issued the orders, conducted 
the business of the state, domestic and foreign, at the capital. Then for 
purposes of local government France was split up into The 
divisions, but, unfortunately, not into a single, simple set. provinces 
There were forty "governments," so called, thirty-two of which cor- 
responded closely to the old provinces of France, the outcome of her 
feudal history. But those forty "governments" belied their name. 
They did little governing, but they furnished many lucrative ofl5ces for 



36 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

the higher nobility who were appointed "governors" and who resided 
generally in Versailles, contributing their part to the magnificent cere- 
monial of that showy parade ground. 

The real, prosaic work was done in the thirty-six "generalities," as 
another set of divisions was called. Over each of these was an intendant 
who was generally of the middle or bourgeois class, accustomed to work. 
These intendants were appointed by the king to carry on the royal gov- 
The in- emment, each in his own district. They generally did not. 

tendants originate much, but they carried out the orders that came 

from the capital and made their reports to it. Their power was practi- 
cally unrestricted. Upon them depended in large measure the happiness 
or the misery of the provinces. Judging from the fact that most of them 
were very unpopular, it must be admitted that this, the real working 
part of the national government, did not contribute to the welfare of 
the people. The intendants were rather the docile tools of the misgov- 
ernment which issued from the five councils which were the five fingers 
of the king. As the head is, so are the members, and the officials under 
the intendants for the smaller local areas enjoyed the disesteem evoked 
by the oppressive or unjust policies of their superiors. 

Speaking broadly, local self-government did not exist in France, but 
the local, like the national, government was directed and determined in 
No local Versailles. Were a bridge to be repaired over some little 

self- stream hundreds of miles from Paris, were a new roof 

governmen required for a village church, the matter w^as regulated 
from Paris, after exasperating delay. It was the reign of the red 
tape in every sense of the word. The people stood hke dumb, driven 
cattle before this monstrous system. The only danger lay in the chance 
that they might not always remain dumb. Here obviously was no school 
for popular political education — a fact which explains many of the mis- 
takes and failures of the people when, in the Revolution, they themselves 
undertook to rule, the monarchy having failed egregiously to discharge 
its functions efficiently or beneficently. 

Let no one suppose that because France was a highly centralized 
monarchy, culminating in the person of the king, that there- 
centralized fore the French government was a real unity. Nothing 

but not could be further from the truth. To study in detail the va- 

umfied .... 

rious aspects of the royal government, its divisions and sub- 
divisions, its standards, its agents, its methods of procedure, is to enter 



LACK OF UNITY IN FRENCH INSTITUTIONS 37 

a lane where the mind quickly becomes hopelessly bewildered, so great 

was the diversity in the machinery employed, so varied were the terms 

in use. Uniformity was nowhere to be seen. There was unity in the. 

person of the king, necessarily, and there only. Every- iii-con- 

where else disunity, diversity, variety, without rhyme or structed 

1,1 1 1 , machinery 

reason. It would take a volume or many volumes to make of govern- 

this clear — even then the reader would be driven to despair '"^°* 
in attempting to form a true mental picture of the situation. The 
institutions of France were a hodge-podge — chaos erected into a sys- 
tem, with no loss of the chaotic, and with no system. Nowadays the 
same laws, the same taxes, the same weights and measures prevail 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. But in 1789 no such 
simplicity or equality prevailed. Weights and measures had different 
names and different values as one moved from province to province, 
sometimes as one moved from village to village. In some provinces 
taxes were, not determined, but at least apportioned, by certain people 
of the province. In other cases this apportionment was effected directly 
by the agents of the king, that is, by the central government. In some 
parts of France the civil laws, that is, the laws that regulated the rela- 
tions of individuals with each other, not with the state, various 
were of Roman origin or character. There the written law systems 
prevailed. In other sections, however, mainly in the north, ° *^ 
one changed laws, Voltaire said, as one changed post-horses. In such 
sections the laws were not written but were customary, that is, feudal in 
origin and in spirit. There were indeed 285 different codes of customary 
laws in force, that is 285 different ways of regulating legally the personal 
relations of men with men, within the confines of France. 

Again the same diversity in another sphere. Thirteen of the prov- 
inces of central France enjoyed free trade, that is, merchandise could 
move freely from one end of that area to the other without proyincal 
restriction. But the other nineteen provinces were sepa- tariff 
rated from each other, just as nations are, by tariff boun- °"" ^"^^ 
daries; and when goods passed from one such province to another, they 
passed through custom-houses and duties were paid on them, as on goods 
that come from Europe to the United States. 

All these diversities in laws, all these tariff boundaries, are easily ex- 
plained. They were historical survivals, troublesome and irritating re- 
minders of the Middle Ages. As the kings of France had during the 



38 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

ages annexed this province and then that, they had, more or less, allowed 
the local customs and institutions to remain undisturbed. Hence this 
amazing patchwork which baffles description. 

One consequence of all this was the persistence in France of that 
feehng which in American history is known as the states-rights feehng. 
While aU admitted that they were Frenchmen, provincial feehng was 
The states- Strong and frequently assertive. Men thought of them- 
rights feeling gelves as Bretons, as Normans, WTre attached to the things 
that differentiated them, were inflexible or stubborn opponents of all 
attempts at amalgamation. Before France could be considered strongly 
united, fusion on a grand scale had to be accomphshed. This was to be 
one of the memorable and durable achievements of the Revolution. 

The financial condition of this extravagant and inefficient state was 

deplorable and dangerous. Almost half of the national income was de-- 

voted to the payment of interest on the national debt. 
Critical con- ^ ,. , , , . • i i 

dition of the Expenditures were always larger than receipts, with the 

national result that there was an annual deficit which had to be met 

by contracting a new loan, thus enlarging the debt and the 
interest charges. It appeared to be the principle of state finance, not that 
expenditures should be determined by income, but that income should be 
determined by expenditures. The debt therefore constantly increased, 
and to meet the chronic deficit the government had recourse to well- 
known methods which only aggravated the evil — the sale of offices, 
new loans. During twelve years of the reign of Louis XVI, from 1776 to 
1788, the debt increased nearly $600,000,000. People became unwiUing 
to loan to the state, and it was practically impossible to increase the 
taxes. The national finances were in a highly critical condition. Bank- 
ruptcy impended, and bankruptcy can only be avoided in two ways, 
either by increasing receipts or by reducing expenditures, or both. 
Attempts were made in the one direction and in the other, but were 
ineffectual. 

The receipts, of course, came from the taxes, and the taxes were 
already very burdensome, at least for those who paid them. They 
The system were of two kinds, the direct and the indirect. The direct 

of taxation taxes were those on real estate, on personal property, and 

honey- 

combed with on income. From some of these the nobles and the clergy 

favoritism were entirely exempt and they therefore fell all the more 
heavily upon the class that remained, the third estate. From others the 



SYSTEM OF TAXATION 39 

nobles, though not legally exempted, were in practice largely freed, be- 
cause the authorities did not assess noble property nearly as high as they 
did the property of commoners. Tax assessors stood in awe of the great. 
Thus the royal princes who were subject to the income tax and w^ho 
ought to have paid nearly two and a half million francs, as a matter of 
fact paid less than two hundred thousand. Again, a marquis who ought 
to have paid a property tax of 2,500 francs paid 400 and a bourgeois in 
the same province who ought to have paid 70 in reahty paid 760. Such 
crass favoritism, which always worked in favor of the nobles, never in 
favor of members of the third estate, naturally served only deeply to 
embitter the latter class. Those who were the wealthiest and therefore 
the best able to support the state were the very ones who paid the least, 
thus conforming to the principle that to those that have shall be given 
and from those that have not shall be taken away even that which they 
have. It has been estimated that the state took from the middle classes, 
and from the workingmen and peasants, half their annual earnings in 
the form of these direct taxes. 

There was another branch of the system of taxation which was op- 
pressive and offensive for other reasons. There were certain indirect 
taxes which were collected, not by state officials, but by Unpopular 
private individuals or companies, the farmers of taxes, as *^®^ 
they were called, who paid a lump sum to the state and then themselves 
collected the taxes, seeking of course to extract as much as possible from 
the people. Not only has this system of tax-collecting always proved 
most hateful, both in ancient and modern times, as the tax-farmers have 
always, in order to make as much as possible, applied the screws with 
pitiless severity, thus generating a maximum of odium and hatred; but 
in this particular case several of the indirect taxes would have been un- 
just and oppressive, even if collected with leniency, a thing never heard 
of. There was, for instance, the salt-tax, or gabelle, which The odious 
came home, in stark odiousness, to every one. The trade salt-tax 
in salt was not open to any one who might wish to engage in it, but was 
a monopoly of a company that bought the privilege from the state, and 
that company was most astoundingly favored by the law. For every 
person above seven years of age was required to buy at least seven 
pounds of salt annually whether he wished it or not. Even the utterly 
poor, who had not money enough to buy bread, were severely punished 
if they refused or neglected to buy the stated amount of salt. Moreover 



40 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

the tax-collectors had the right to search all houses from top to bottom 
to see that there was no evasion. Illicit trade in this necessary com- 
modity was incessantly tracked down and severely punished. On the 
very eve of the Revolution it was officially estimated that 20,000 persons 
were annually imprisoned and over 500 annually condemned to death, 
or to service in the galleys, which was hardly preferable, for engaging in 
the illegal trade in salt. Moreover by an extra refinement in the art of 
oppression the seven pounds that all must buy could be used only for 
cooking or on the table. If one desired to salt down fish or meats for 
preservation, one must not use this particular salt for that purpose, but 
must buy an additional amount. 

There was another equally intolerable tax, the excise on wine. The 
making of wine was a great national industry which had existed for 
The excise centuries, but if ever there was a system calculated to de- 
tax on wine press it, it was the one in vogue in France. Wine was 
taxed all along the line from the producer to the consumer. Taxed at the 
moment of manufacturcj taxed at the moment of sale by the producer, 
it was also taxed repeatedly in transportation, — thirty-five or forty 
times for instance, between the south of France and Paris, so that the 
combined taxes amounted in the end to nearly as much as the cost of 
the original production. A trade exposed to such constant and heavy 
impositions could not greatly flourish. 

Again the taxes both on salt and on wine were not uniform, but varied 
from region to region, so that the sense of unjust treatment was kept 
alive every day in the ordinary course of business, and smuggling 
was in many cases extremely profitable. This in turn led to savage 
punishments, which only augmented the universal discontent and en- 
tered like iron into the souls of men. In the system of taxation, as in 

„ the political structure, we find everywhere inequality of 

The system ^ . ' ■' . . ^ 

of taxation treatment, privileges, arbitrary and tyrannical regulations, 

ui^air and coupled with uncertainty from year to year, for the regula- 
tions were not infrequently changed. No wonder that 
men, even nobles, criticized this fiscal system as shockingly unjust and 
scandalously oppressive. 

The social organization of France, also, was far from satisfactory. 
On even the most cursory view many notorious abuses, many intolerable 
grievances, many irritating or harmful maladjustments stood forth, 
condemned by reason or the interest of large sections of the population. 



CLASS DIVISIONS 41 

Forms outworn, and institutions from which the life had departed, but 
whence issued a benumbing influence, hampered development in many 
directions. French society was frankly based upon the principle of in- 
equality. There were three classes or orders, the clergy, 
the nobihty, and the third estate. Not only were the two classes of 

former classes privileged, that is, placed upon a better ^''rench 
1 11 T • • • , , society 

footmg than tlie last, but it is curious to observe how the 

pervasive principle of unequal rights broke up even the formal unity of 

each of these classes. There was inequality of classes and there was 

also inequality between sections of the same class. The two 

privileged orders were favored in many ways, such as com- between and 

plete or partial exemption from taxes, or the right them- within these 

•' o clfl.SSGS 

selves to tax — the clergy through its right to tithes, the 
nobility through its right to exact feudal dues. Even some of the mem- 
bers of the third estate enjoyed privileges denied the rest. There were 
classes within classes. Of the 25,000,000 of Frenchmen 
the clergy numbered about 130,000, the nobility 140,000, leged classes 

while possibly about as manv bourgeois as these two com- * small 
... " minority 

bined enjoyed privileges that separated them from the 

mass of their class. Thus the privileged as a whole numbered less than 

600,000, wliile the unprivileged numbered weU over 24,000,000. One 

man in forty therefore belonged to the favored minority whose lot was 

differentiated from that of their feUowmen by artificial advantages and 

distinctions. 

The clergy of the Roman CathoHc Church formed the first order in 

the state. It was rich and powerful. It owned probably a fifth of the 

land of France. This land yielded a large revenue, and, in The 

addition, the clergy exacted tithes on all the agricultural Church 

products of the realm. This was in reality a form of national taxation, 

with this difference from the other forms, that the proceeds went, not 

to the nation, but to the Church. The Church had stiU another source of 

income, the dues which it exacted as feudal landlord from those to whom 

it stood in that relation. The total income of this corpora- 

1 rfk r \^ ^^^ income 

tion was approximately $100,000,000 of our money. Out and the 

of this it was the duty of the Church to maintain religious services it 

edifices and services, to support many hospitals and schools, 

to relieve personal distress by charity, for there was no such thing in 

France as organized poor rehef by the state or municipality. Thus the 



42 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

Church was a state within the state, performing several functions which 
in most modern societies are performed by the secular authority. This 
rich corporation was relieved from taxation. Although from time to 
time it paid certain lump sums to the national treasury, these were far 
smaller than they would have been had the Church been taxed on its 
property and on its income in the same proportion as were the commoners. 

An income so large, had it been wisely and justly expended, might 
have aroused no criticism, for many of the services performed by this 
F 'f sm organization were essential to the well-being of France, 
within the But here as elsewhere in the institutions of the country 
^^^ we find gross favoritism and wanton extravagance, which 

shocked the moral sense of the nation and aroused its indignation, be- 
cause they behed so completely pretensions to a peculiar sanctity on 
which the Church based its claims to its privileged position. For the 
organization did not treat its own staff with any sense of fair play. 
Much the larger part of the income went to the higher clergy, that is, 
to the 134 bishops and archbishops, and to a small number of abbots, 
canons, and other dignitaries — in all probably not more than 5,000 
or 6,000 ecclesiastics. These highly lucrative positions were monopo- 
lized by the younger sons of the nobility, who "were eager to accept the 
The world- salaries but not disposed to perform the duties. Many of 
liness of the them resided at court and lived the gay and worldly life, 
g er c ergy ^^^^|^ scarcely anything, save some shght peculiarity of dress, 
to indicate their ecclesiastical character. The morals of many were 
scandalous and their intellectual ability was frequently mediocre. 
They did not consider themselves men set apart for a high and noble 
calling, they did not take their duties seriously — of course there were 
honorable exceptions, yet they were exceptions — but their aims were 
distinctly finite and they conducted themselves as typical men of the 
world, attentive to the problem of self-advancement, devoted to all the 
pleasures, dissipations, and intrigues of Versailles. Some held several 
offices at once, discharging the obligations of none, and enjoying princely 
revenues. The archbishop of Strassburg had an income of $300,000 a 
year and held high court in a splendid palace, entertaining 200 guests at 
a time. Even the saucepans of his kitchens were of silver. A hundred 
and eighty horses were in his stables, awaiting the pleasure of the guests. 

A few of the bishops received small incomes, but the average among 
them was over $50,000 a year. They were in the main absentees, resid- 



PRIVILEGE WITHIN THE CHURCH 43 

ing, not in their dioceses, but in Versailles, where further plums were to 
be picked up by the lucky, and where at any rate life was gay. Some of 
the bishoprics had even become the hereditary possessions of certain 
famihes, passing from uncle to nephew, as in the secular sphere many 
oflSces passed from father to son. 

On the other hand, the lo\fer clergy, the thousands of parish priests, 
who did the real work of spiritual consolation and instruction, who 
labored faithfully in the vineyard, were wretchedly recom- ^^^ poverty 
pensed. They were sons of the third estate, while their of the lower 
proud and prosperous superiors WTre sons of the nobility, *^ ^'^^^ 
and they were treated as plebeians. With wretched incomes of 
a few hundred francs, they had difficulty in keeping body and soul 
together. No wonder they were discontented and indignant, exclaiming 
that their lot "made the very stones and beams of their miserable 
dwellings cry aloud." No wonder they were bitter against their supe- 
riors, who neglected and exploited them with equal indifference. The 
privileged order of the clergy is thus seen to be divided into two 
classes, widely dissimilar in position, in origin, and in outlook upon 
hfe. The parish priests came from the people, experienced the hard- 
ships and sufferings of the people, saw the injustice of the existing 
system, and sympathized with plans for its reform. The ^j^^ dgj-gy 
triumph of the popular cause in the Revolution was divided 
powerfully aided by the lower clergy, who at critical against 

itself 

moments threw in their lot with the third estate and 
against their clerical superiors who rallied to the support of the abso- 
lute monarchy which had been so indulgent and so lavish to them. A 
house divided against itself, however, cannot permanently stand. 

Somewhat similar was the situation of the second order, the nobility. 
As in the case of the clergy, there was here also great variety of con- 
dition among the members of this order, although all were privileged. 
There were several subdivisions, clearly enough marked. There were two 
main classes, the nobiUty of the sword and the nobility of ^1^ i^-j-^ 
the robe, that is, the old military nobility of feudal origin and its sub- 
and the new judicial nobility, which secured its rank from '^1^^°°^ 
the judicial offices its members held. The nobility of the sword consisted 
of the nobles of the court and of the nobles of the provinces. The former 
were few in number, perhaps a thousand, but they shone with peculiar 
brilUancy, for they were the ones who lived in Versailles, danced attend- 



44 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

ance upon the king, vied with each other in an eager competition for 
appointments in the army and navy and diplomatic service, for pensions 
and largesses from the royal bounty. These they needed, as they lived 
in a luxurious splendor that taxed their incomes and overtaxed them. 
Residing at court, they allowed their estates to be administered by bail- 
iffs or stewards, who exacted all that they could get from the peasantry 
The court who cultivated them. Everybody was jealous of the 
nobles nobles of this class, for they were the favored few, who 

practically monopolized all the pleasant places in the sun. 

The contrast was striking between them and the hundred thousand 
provincial nobles who for various reasons did not live at court, were not 
known to the king, received no favors, and who yet were conscious that 
in purity of blood, in honorableness of descent and tradition, they were 
the equals or superiors of those who crowded about the monarch's per- 
son. Many of them had small incomes, some pitifully small. They 
The pro- could cut no figure in the world of society, they had fe^w 

vincial chances to increase their prosperity, which, in fact, tended 

°° ^^ steadily to decrease. Their sons were trained for the army, 

the only noble profession, but could never hope to rise very high because 
all the major appointments went to the assiduous suitors of the clique 
at court. They resided among the peasants and in some cases were 
hardly distinguishable from them, except that they insisted upon main- 
taining the tradition of their class, their badge of superiority, a life of 
leisure. To work was to lose caste. This obliged many of them to insist 
rigorously upon the pajonent of the various feudal dues owed them by. 
the peasantry, some of which were burdensome, most of which were irri- 
tating. In some parts of France, however, as in the Vendee and in Brit- 
tany they were sympathetic and helpful in their relations with, the 
peasants and were in turn respected by them. 

The nobility as a whole enjoyed one privilege that was a serious and 
unnecessary injury to the peasants, making harder the conditions of their 
lives, always hard enough, namely the exclusive right of hunting, consid- 
ered the chief noble sport. This meant in actual practice that the peas- 
ants might not disturb the game, although the game was destroying 
their crops. This was an unmitigated abuse, universally execrated by 
them. 

The odium that came to be attached in men's minds to the nobiHty 
was chiefly felt only for the selfish and greedy minority. The provincial 



THE NOBILITY OF THE ROBE 



45 



tiobility, like the lower clergy, were themselves discontented with the 
existing order, for abundant reasons. They might not wish a sweeping 
transformation of society, but they were disposed to favor political 
reforms that would at least give all within the order an approximately 
equal chance. They were devoted to the king, but they experienced in 

their own persons the 
evils of an arbitrary 
and capricious govern- 
ment which was highly 
partial in its favors. 

There was yet 
another section of the 
nobility whose status 
and whose The nobUity 
outlook of the robe 

were different still. 
Many offices in France 
could be bought. They 
and their perquisites 
became the property of 
those who purchased 
them and who could 
transmit them to their 
cliildren, and one of the 
perquisites that such 
offices carried was a pat- 
ent of nobihty. This 
was the created nobil- 
ity, the nobility of the 
robe, so called because its most conspicuous members were the judges, or 
members of the higher tribunals or parlements. These judges appeared, 
in one aspect, as liberals in that as lawyers they opposed certain unpopu- 
lar innovations attempted by the king. But in reality as soon as their 
own privileges were threatened they became the stiffest of defenders of 
many of the most odious abuses of the Old Regime. In the opening 
days of the Revolution the third estate found no more bitter opponents 
than these ennobled judges. 

Such were the two privileged orders. The rest of the population 




The Paelement of Paris 
After a drawing by Binet. 



46 THE OLD RfiGIME IN FRANCE 

comprising the vast majority of the people, was called the third estate. 
The Third Differing from the others in that it was unprivileged, it 
Estate resembled them in that it illustrated the principle of in- 

equality, as did they. There were the widest extremes in social and eco- 
nomic conditions. Every one who was not a noble or a clergyman was 
a member of the third estate, the richest banker, the most illustrious man 
of letters, the poorest peasant, the beggar in the streets. Not at all 
homogeneous, the three chief divisions of this immense mass were the 
bourgeoisie, the artisans, and the peasants. 

The bourgeoisie, or upper middle class, comprised all those who were 
not manual laborers. Thus lawyers, physicians, teachers, literary men, 
The hour- were bourgeois: also merchants, bankers, manufacturers, 
geoisie Despite great national reverses, the bourgeoisie had grown 

richer during the past century as commerce had greatly increased. This 
economic growth had benefited the bourgeosie almost exclusively and 
many large fortunes had been built up and the general level of material 
welfare had been distinctly raised. These were the practical business 
men who loaned money to the state and who were frequently appointed 
to offices where business ability was required. Intelligent, energetic, 

educated, and well-to-do, this class resented most keenly 
with the the existing system. For they were made to feel in numer- 

existing Q^g galling ways their social inferiority, and, conscious that 

they were quite as well educated, quite as well mannered 
as the nobles, they returned the disdain of the latter with envy and 
hatred. Having loaned immense sums to the state, they were increas- 
ingly apprehensive, as they saw it verging rapidly toward bankruptcy, 
because their interests were greatly imperiled. They favored therefore 
a political reorganization which should enable them to participate in 
D ire Bolit- ^^^ government, to control its expenditures, to assure its 
ical and so- solvency, that thus they might be certain of their interest 
cial reforms ^^^ principal, that thus abuses which impeded or injured 
business might be redressed, and that the precariousness of their 
position might be remedied. 

They wished also a social revolution. Well educated, saturated with 
the literature of the period, which they read with avidity, their minds 
fermented with the ideas of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and the 
economists. Personally, man for man, they were as cultivated as the 
nobles. They wished social equality, they wished the laws to recognize 



THE LABORING CLASSES 



47 




what they feh the facts proved, that the bourgeois was the equal of the 
noble. They chafed under pretensions which they felt unjustified by 
any real superiority. Their mood was brilliantly expressed by a pam- 
phlet written by one of their members, the Abbe Sieyes, which circu- 
lated enormously on the eve of the 
Revolution. "What is the Third 
Estate?" asked Sieyes. "Every- 
thing. What has it been in poUtics 
until now? Nothing. What does 
it desire? To become something." 
Belonging to this estate but 
beneath the bourgeoisie were the 
artisans — perhaps two million 
and a half, Uving in The 
the towns and cities, artisans 
They were a comparatively small 
class because the industrial life of 
France was not yet highly de- 
veloped. They were generally or- 
ganized in guilds which had their 
rules and privileges that gave rise 
to bickerings galore and that were 
generally condemned as preventing the free and full expansion of indus- 
try and as artificially restricting the right to work. 

The other large division of the third estate was the peasantry. This 
was by far the largest section. Indeed it was the nation. France was 
an agricultural country, more than nine-tenths of the population were 
peasants, more than 20,000,000. About a million of them were serfs, 
the rest were free men, yet their lot was an unhappy one. The burdens of 
society fell with crushing weight upon them. They paid fifty-five per 
cent of what they were able to earn to the state, according The peas- 
to the sober estimate of Turgot. They paid tithes to the *"*'"y 
clergy and numerous and vexatious feudal dues to the nobles. The 
peasant paid tolls to the seigneur for the use of the roads and bridges. 
■When he sold his land he paid a fee to the former seigneur. He was com- 
pelled to use the seigneur's wine press in making his wine, the seigneur's 
mill, the seigneur's oven, always paying for the service. The loss of 
money was one aspect of the business, the loss of time another. In 



Sieyes 
From an engraving by Fiesinger, after a draw- 
ing by J. Guerin. 



48 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

some cases, for instance, the mill was four or five hours distant, and a 

dozen or more rivers and rivulets had to be crossed. In summer, even if 

the water was too low to turn the wheel, nevertheless the peasant was 

obliged to bring his grain to be ground, must wait perhaps three days or 

must pay a fee for permission to have the grain ground 

by various elsewhere. Adding what he paid to the king, the Church, 

and heavy q^^^ ^j^g seigneur, and the salt and excise duties, the total 
taxes 

was often not far from four-fifths of his earnings. With the 

remaining one-fifth he had to support himself and family. 

The inevitable consequence was that he lived on the verge of disaster. 
Bad weather at a critical moment supervening, he faced dire want, even 
starvation. It happened that the harvest was bad in 1788 and that the 
following winter was cruelly severe. According to a foreign ambassador 
water froze almost in front of the fireplace. It need occasion no surprise 
that owing to such conditions hundreds of thousands of men became 
beggars or brigands, driven to frenzy by hunger. It has been estimated 
that in Paris alone, with a population of 650,000, there were nearly 
120,000 paupers. No wonder there were abundant recruits for riots and 
deeds of violence. The 20,000,000 peasants, who knew nothing of state- 
A profoundly craft, who were ignorant of the destructive and subversive 
discontented theories of Voltaire and Rousseau, were daily and hourly 
"^ *^^ impressed with the imperative necessity of reforms by the 

hard circumstances of their lives. They knew that the feudal dues would 
have to be abolished, that the excessive exactions of the state would 
have to be reduced before their lives could become tolerable. Their 
reasons for desiring change were different from those of the other classes, 
but it is evident that they were more than sufficient. 

The combined demand for reform increased as time went on and 
swelled in volume and in intensity. The voice of the people spoke with 
no uncertain sound. 

Such was the situation. On the eve of the Revolution Frenchmen 
enjoyed no equality of status or opportunity but privileges of the most 
varied kinds divided them from each other. 

They also enjoyed no liberty. Religious liberty was lacking. Since 
Restrictions ^^^ revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 Protestant- 
upon relig- ism had been outlawed. It was a crime punishable with 
lous liberty ^^^^ j^^^^ ^^ practise that religion. Under Louis XVI the 
persecution of Protestants was in fact suspended, but it might be resumed 



RESTRICTIONS UPON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 



49 




ri -a 

5 > 



^ s 



50 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 



J 



at any moment. Protestant preaching was forbidden and consequent! 
could occur only in secret or in lonely places. Jews were considered 
foreigners and as such were tolerated, but their position was humiliat- 
ing. Cathohcs were required by law to observe the requirements 
and usages of iheir religion, communion, fast days. Lent. The Church 
was absolutely opposed to toleration and because of this incurred the 
animosity of Voltaire. 

There was no hberty of thought, or at least, of the expression of it. 
Every book, every newspaper article must be submitted to the censor for 
approval before pubhcation, and no printer might print 
upon in- without permission. Even when published in conformity 

tellectual ^jj-j^ these conditions books might be seized and burned by 

the police, editions destroyed when possible, and publish- 
ers, authors, readers might be prosecuted and fined or imprisoned. Let 
no one think that the mere fact that Rousseau, Voltaire, and the other 
authors of the day were able to get their thoughts before the public 
proves that liberty existed in practice, even if not in theory. Voltaire 
knew imprisonment for what he wrote and was virtually exiled during 
long years of his life. The censorship was applied capriciously but 
it was applied sufficiently often, and prosecutions were sufficiently 
numerous to justify the statement that liberty was lacking in this 
sphere of life. 

There was no individual liberty. The authorities might arrest any 
one whom they wished and keep him in prison as long as they chose 
Restrictions without assigning reasons and without giving the- victim 
upon civil any chance to prove his innocence. There was no such 
^'^ ^ thing as a Habeas Corpus law. There was a large number 

of state prisons, the most famous being the Bastille, and many of 
their occupants were there by reason of the lettres de cachet, or orders 
for arbitrary arrest, one of the most odious and hated features of 
the Old Regime. Ministers and their subordinate officials used these 
letters freely. Nobles easily obtained them, sometimes the place for 
the name being left blank for them to fill in. Sometimes, even, they 
were sold. Thus there was abundant opportunity to use them to pay 
off merely personal grudges. Malesherbes once said to Louis XVI, 
"No citizen of your realm is sure of not seeing his liberty sacrificed to 
private spite, the spirit of revenge: for no one is so great as to be safe 
from the hatred of a minister, so little as to be unworthy of that of 



ABSENCE OF POLITICAL LIBERTY 51 

a clerk." Lettres de cachet were also used as a measure of family dis- 
cipline, to buttress the authority of the head of the family, which 
,was quite as absolute as it is in the Orient. A father could have 
his wife imprisoned or his children, even though they were adults. 
Mirabeau had this experience even when he was already widely known 
as a writer on pubhc affairs. 

Nor was there political liberty. The French did not have the right 
to hold public meetings or to form associations or societies. And of 
course, as we have seen, they did not elect any assemblies poutical 
to control the royal government. Liberties which had been liberty 
in vogue in England for centuries, which were the priceless ^^ ^ 
heritage of the. English race on both sides of the Atlantic, were unknown 
in France. 

In view of all these facts it is not strange that Liberty and Equality 
became the battle cry of the Revolution, embodying the deepest aspira- 
tions of the nation. 

The French Revolution has been frequently ascribed to the influence 
of the " philosopliers " or writers of the eighteenth century. This is put- 
ting the cart before the horse, not the usual or efficient way of insuring 
progress. The manifold ills from which the nation suffered only too pal- 
pably were the primary cause of the demand for a cure. 

Nevertheless it was a fact of great importance that all the conditions 
described above, and many others, were criticised through the century 
by a group of brilliant writers, whose exposition and denun- influence of 
ciation gave vocal expression on a vast scale to the discon- literary men 
tent, the indignation, and the longing of the age. Literature was a lusty 
and passionate champion of reform, and through it a flood of new ideas 
swept over France. Many of these ideas were of foreign origin, German, 
American, above all English; many were of native growth. Literature 
was political, and never was there such a raking criticism, from every 
angle, of prevalent ideas. It was skeptical and expressed the greatest 
contempt for the traditional — that is, for the very basis on which France 
uneasily rested. It was analytical, and ideas and institutions and methods 
were subjected to the most minute and exhaustive exami- The critical 
nation. No cranny of sequestered abuse or folly was left philosophy 
unexplored by these eager and inquisitive and irreverent eighteenth 
minds, on whom the past hung lightly. Literature was opti- century 
mistic, and never did a nation witness so luxuriant or tropical a growth 



52 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

of Utopias and dreams. Rarely has any body of writing been so charged 
and surcharged with freshness and boldness and reckless confidence. 
Appealing to reason^ appealing to the emotions, it ran up and down the 
gamut of human nature, playing with ease and fervor upon the minds 
and hearts of men, in every tone, with every accent. It was a literature 
of criticism, of denunciation, of ingenious or futile suggestions for a fairer 
future. Sparkling, vehement, satirical, scientific in form, it breathed 
revolt, detestation, but it breathed also an abounding faith in the in- 
finite perfectibility of man and his institutions. It was 

Both de- , ^ . , r ^ -IT 

structive and destructive, as has often been said, it was constructive, 
constructive ^qq g^ characteristic which has not so often been noted. 

|fl jtg ©ff6CtS 

These books, which issued in great profusion from the 
facile pens and teeming brains of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, 
Diderot, Quesnay, and many others, stirred the intellectual world to 
its depths. They accelerated the circulation of multifarious ideas on 
politics, religion, society, business. They constituted great historic 
acts. They crystallized in brilliant and sometimes blinding formulas 
and theorems whole philosophies of the state and of society. In such 
compact and manageable form they made the tour of France and began 
the tour of Europe. 

The volume of this inflammable literature was large, its impetus 
tremendous. It exhaled the love of liberty, the craving for justice. Lib- 
eral ideas penetrated more and more deeply into the public mind. A 
vast fermentation, an incessant and fearless discussion of existing evils 
and their remedies prepared the way for coming events which were to 
prove of momentous character. 

For three generations the fire of criticism and satire rained upon the 
foundations of the French monarchy. The campaign was opened by 
Montes- Montesquieu, a member of the nobility of the robe, a lawyer 

quieu of eminence, a judge of the Parlement of Bordeaux. His 

great work, the product of twenty years of labor, was his 
Spirit of Laws, published in 1748. It had an immediate and immense 
success. Twenty-two editions issued from the press in eighteen months. 
It was a study in political philosophy, an analysis of the various forms of 
government known to men, a cold and balanced judgment of their vari- 
ous peculiarities, merits, and defects. Tearing aside the veil of mystery 
which men had thrown about their institutions, disregarding contemp- 
tuously the claim of a divine origin, of a sacrosanct and inviolable qual- 



THE WRITINGS OF MONTESQUIEU 



53 



ity inherent in their very nature, Montesquieu examined the various 
types with the same detachment and objectivity which a botanist shows 
in the study of his specimens. Two or three leading ideas "The Spirit 
emerged from the process. One was that the Enghsh gov- °* ^^^^ " 
ernment was on the whole the best, since it guaranteed personal Hberty 

to all citizens. It was a monarchy 
which was limited in power, and 
controlled by an assembly which 
represented the people of Eng- 
land — in other words what, in 
the language of modern political 
science, is called a constitutional 
monarchy. Montesquieu also em- 
phasized the necessity in any well- 
regulated state of separating care- 
fully the three powers of govern- 
ment, the legislative, the executive, 
and the judicial. In the French 
monarchy all were blended and 
fused in the single person of the 
king, and were subject to no 
earthly control — and, as a matter 
of fact, to no divine control that 
was perceptible. These concep- 
tions of a COnstitU- praises 
tional as preferable to an absolute monarchy, and of the constitutional 
necessity of providing for a separation of the three powers, 
have dominated all the constitutions France has had since 1789 and have* 
exerted an influence far beyond the boundaries of that country. Pro- 
pounded by a studious judge, in language that was both grave and ele- 
gant, Montesquieu's masterpiece was a storehouse of wisdom, destined 
to be provocative of much thought, discussion, and action, both in France 
and elsewhere. 

Very different, but even more memorable, was the work of Voltaire, 
one of the master minds of European history, whose name has become 
the name of an era. We speak of the Age of Voltaire as Voltaire 
we speak of the Age of Luther and of Erasmus. Voltaire (1694-1778) 
stands for the emancipation of the intellect. His significance to his 




Montesquieu 

From the engraving by B. L. Henriquez after 

the picture at the Academie Franjaise. 



54 



THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 



An impas- 
sioned 
champion of 
freedom 



times is shown in the title men gave him — King Voltaire. The world 
has not often seen a freer or more intrepid spirit. Supremely gifted for 
a life of letters, Voltaire proved himself an accompHshed poet, historian, 
dramatist, even scientist, for 
he was not a specialist, but 
versatility was his forte. Well 
known at the age of twenty- 
three, he died at the age of 
eighty-four in a veritable deli- 
rium of applause, for his exit 
from the world was an amaz- 
ing apotheosis. World-re- 
nowned he melted into world 
history. 

He had not trod the prim- 
rose path of dahiance but 
had been a war- 
rior all his hfe, for 
multifarious and 
generally honor- 
able causes. With many 
weaknesses of character, of 
which excessive vanity was 
one, he was a pillar of cloud 
by day and of fire by night 
for all who enlisted in the 
hght for the liberation of 
mankind. He had personally 
experienced the oppression of 
the Old Regime and he hated it with a deep and abiding hatred. He had 
more than once been thrown into prison by the odious arbitrary lettres 
de cachet because he had incurred the enmity of the great. A large part of 
his life had been spent in exile because he was not safe in France. By 
his prodigious intellectual activity he had amassed a large 
of every fortune and had become one of the powers of Europe. 

Show him a case of arbitrary injustice, a case of religious 
persecution hounding an innocent man to an awful death 
— and there were such cases — and you would see him taking the field, 







■ 




Pi 


/t^VHH 




1 1 '^ 


fH 


^■IhIJ 


itt'1% " 


■ 




■^^^^1 



Voltaire 
From the bust by Houdon. 



form of 
tyranny 



I THE INFLUENCE OF VOLTAIRE 55 

aflame with wrath against the authors of the monstrous deed. It was 
literally true in the age of Voltaire that the pen was far mightier than 
the sword. His style has been superlatively praised and cannot be 
praised too highly. Clear, pointed, supple, trenchant, it was a Damas- 
cus blade. He was never tiresome, he was always interesting, and he 
was generally instructive. The buoyancy of his spirit was jjjg remark- 
shown in everything he wrote. A master of biting satire able literary 
and of pulverizing invective, he singled out particularly for ^^ 
his attention the hypocrisies and cruelties and bigotries of his age and he 
raked them with a rapid and devastating fire. This brought him into 
conflict with the State and the Church. He denounced the abuses and 
iniquities of the laws and the judicial system, of arbitrary imprison- 
ment, of torture. Voltaire was not a careful and sober student, like 
Montesquieu. In an age which had no journaUsm he was the most 
brilhant and mordant of journalists, writing as he listed, on the events 
or problems of his day. The variety and piquancy of his writings were 
astonishing. 

Voltaire was not primarily a political thinker. He attacked indi- 
vidual abuses in the state and he undermined the respect for authority, 
but he evidently was satisfied with monarchy as an institution. His ideal 
of government was a benevolent despotism. He was not a democrat. 
He would rather be ruled by one lion than by a hundred rats, was the 
way in which he expressed his preference. 

The Church was his hete noire, as he considered it the gloomy fastness 
of moldering superstitions, the enemy of freedom of thought, the per- 
secutor of innocent men who differed from it, as the seat of 
intolerance, as the supporter of all kinds of narrow and vehement 
bigoted prejudices. Voltaire was not an atheist. He be- attacks upon 
lieved in God, but he did not believe in the Christian or in 
the Hebrew God, and he hated the Roman CathoUc Church and all its 
works and dealt it many redoubtable blows. In eighteenth-century 
France the Church, as we have seen, presented plenty of vulnerable 
sides for his fiery shafts. Voltaire's work was not constructive but 
destructive. His religious faith was vague at best and hot very vital. 
He scorned all formal creeds. 

Very different in tone and tendency was the work of another author, 
Jean Jacques Rousseau. In Voltaire we have the dry, white light of 
reason thrown upon the dark places of the world. In Rousseau we have 



S6 



THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 



reason, or rather logic, suffused and powerfully refracted with emo- 
Rousseau tion. If the former was primarily engaged in the attempt 

(1712-1778) jq destroy, the latter was constructive, imaginative, pro- 
phetic. Rousseau was the creator of an entire political system; he was 
the confident theorist of 
a new organization of so- 
ciety. Montesquieu and 
Voltaire desired political 
reforms in the interest of 
individual liberty, desired 
the end of tyranny. But 
Rousseau swept far be- 
yond them, wishing a 
total reorganization of so- 
ciety, because no amount 
of patching and renovat- 
ing could make the present 
system tolerable, because 
nothing less would render 
liberty possible. He wrote 
a magic prose, rich, sono- 
rous, full of melancholy, 
full of color, of musical 
cadences, of solemn and 

pensive elo- 
Rousseau's '■ 

lack of the quence. The 
historical past had no 

sense '- 

power over 

him ; he lacked completely 

the historical sense. The 




Jean Jacques Rousseau 
From an engraving by J. E. Nochez after A. Ramsaj', 



past, indeed, he despised. It was to him the enemy par excellence, the 
cause of all the multiplied ills from which humanity was suffering and 
must free itself. Angry with the world as it was — his own life had been 
hard — he, the son of a Genevan watchmaker, had wandered here and 
there practising different trades, valet, music-teacher, tutor — he had 
Civilization known misery and had no personal reason for thinking well 
the enemy q£ ^he world and its boasted civilization. In his first work 
he propounded his fundamental thesis that man, naturally good and 



THE POLITICAL THEORIES OF ROUSSEAU 



57 



just and happy, had been corrupted and degraded by the very thing 
he called civilization. Therefore sweep civilization aside, and on the 
ground freed from its artificial and baneful conventions and institutions 
erect the idyllic state. 

Rousseau's principal work was his Social Contract, one of the most 
S famous and in its results one of the most influential books ever written. 
Opening with the starthng statement that "man was born "The Social 
free and is everywhere in chains," he proceeded to outline, Contract" 
by pure abstract reasoning, and with a lofty disregard of all that history 
had to teach and all that psychology revealed of the nature of the human 
mind, a purely ideal state, which was in complete contrast to the one in 
which he lived. Society rests only upon an agreement of the persons 
who compose it. The people are sovereign, not any individual, nor any 
class. All men are free and equal. The purpose of any government 
should be to preserve the rights of each. Rousseau did not at all agree 
with Montesquieu, whose praise of the English form of gov- 
ernment as insuring personal liberty he considered falla- the EngUsh 
cious. "The Enghsh think themselves free," he said, "but ^°^^ °^ go^- 
they are mistaken, for they are free only at the moment 
in which they elect the members of Parliament." As soon as these are 
chosen, the people are slaves, they are nothing, since the members of 
Parliament are rulers, not the people. Only when the next election 
comes round will they be free again, and then only for another moment. 
Rousseau repudiated the representative system of government and de- 
manded that the people make the laws themselves directly. Govern- 
ment must be government by majorities. The majority may make 
mistakes, nevertheless it is always right — a dark saying. Rousseau's 
state made no provision for safeguarding any rights of the minority which 
the majority might wish to infringe. The harmful feature of his system 
was that it rendered possible a tyranny by a majority over a minority 
quite as complete and odious and unrestrained as any tyranny of a king 
could be. But two of his ideas stood out in high relief 
— the sovereignty of the people and the political equality extreme 
of all citizens, two democratic principles which were ut- democratic 
terly subversive of the states of Europe as then constituted. 
These principles powerfully influenced the course of the Revolution and 
have been preached with fervor and denounced with passion by rival 
camps ever since. They have made notable progress in the world since 



58 THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 

Rousseau gave them thrilling utterance, but they have still much ground 
to traverse before they gain the field, before the reign of democracy every- 
where prevails. 




TuE King's Bedchamber at Versailles 

There were many other writers who, by attacking this abuse and 

that, contributed powerfully to the discrediting, the sapping of the Old 

Regime. A conspicuous group of them busied themselves with economic 

^ . . , . studies and theories, enunciating principles which, if ap- 
Critics of the ,. , , , , . . i • T • i , • i 

prevailing plied, wouid revolutionize the industrial and commercial 

economic ^jfg qJ ^]^g nation by sweeping away the numerous and 

formidable restrictions which hampered it and which per- 
meated it with favoritism and privilege, and by introducing the maxi- 
mum of liberty in commerce, in industry, in agriculture, just as the 
writers whom we have described enunciated principles which would 
revolutionize France politically and socially. 

All this seed fell upon fruitful soil. Remarkable was to be the harvest 
as we shall shortly see. 

The Revolution was not caused by the philosophers, but by the con- 
ditions and evils of the national life and by the mistakes of the govern- 



I THE WRITERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59 

ment. Nevertheless these writers were a factor in the Revolution, for 
they educated a group of leaders, instilled into them certain decisive 
The influ- doctrines, furnished them with phrases, formulas, and argu- 
ence of the ments, gave a certain tone and cast to their minds, imparted 
the eigh- ^^ them certain powerful illusions, encouraged an excessive 

teenth cen- hopefulness which was characteristic of the movement. 
^^^ They did- not cause the Revolution, but they exposed the 

causes brilliantly, focused attention upon them, compelled discussion, 
and aroused passion. 

REFERENCES 

The King, the Administration, and the Court: Lowell, The Eve of the French 
Revolution, Chaps. I a'nd II; Mathews, The French Revolution, Chap. I; Perkins, 
France under the Regency, pp. 129-141; Taine, Ancient Regime, pp. 86-124; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. VIII, Chap. II. 

Taxation and Finance: Lowell, pp. 207-242; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 
VIII, pp. 66-78. 

The Privileged and Unprivileged Classes: Mathews, Chaps. II and IV; 
Lowell, Chaps. Ill, VI, and XIII. 

The Influence of Men of Letters: Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revo- 
lution, pp. 170-181; Mathews, Chap. V; Morley, Voltaire, Chaps. I and V; Lowell, 
pp. 274-302. 



CHAPTER III 
BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

Under Louis XVI the financial situation of France became more 
and more serious, until it could no longer be ignored. The cost of the 
participation in the American Revolution, added to the enormous 
debt inherited from the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV and to the 
excessive and unregulated expenditures of the state and 
condition of the wastefulness of the court, completed the derangement 
the national Qf ^}^g national finances and foreshadowed bankruptcy. 
In the end this crisis forced the monarch to make an appeal 
to the people by summoning their representatives. 

But before taking so grave a step, the consequences of which were 
incalculable, the government tried various expedients less drastic, which, 
however, for various reasons, failed. Louis XVI was the unhappy 
Louis XVI monarch under whom these long accumulating ills cul- 
(1774-1793) minated. The last of the rulers of the Old Regime, his 
reign covered the years from 1774 to 1792. It falls into three periods, a 
brief one of attempted reform (1774-17 76) and then a relapse for the 
next twelve years into the traditional methods of the Bourbon mon- 
archy, and after that the hurricane. 

During his youth no one thought that Louis would ever be. monarch, 
so many other princes stood between him and the throne that his suc- 
cession was only a remote contingency. But owing to an unprecedented 
number of deaths in the direct line this contingency became reality. 
Louis mounted the throne, from which eighteen years later, by a strange 
concourse of events, he was hurled. He had never been molded for the 
high and dangerous office. He was but twenty years old and the Queen, 
Marie Antoinette, but nineteen when they heard of the death of Louis 
XV, and instinctively both expressed the same thought, "How unhappy 
are we. We are too young to rule." The new King was entirely un- 
trained in the arts of government. He was good, wellTintentioned, he 
had a high standard of morality and duty, a genuine desire to serve his 

60 



LOUIS XVI 



6i 






TV 



Pil<ias^ <fr^ Sr;s^gr'T:g j:^ife^S£^fe^^^ 



IS: 



t,. 




Louis XVI 
From the engraving by Nargeot, after the painting by Callet. 



people. But his mind lacked all distinction, his education had been 
poor, his processes of thought were hesitating, slow, uncer- character of 
tain. Awkward, timid, without elegancies or graces of mind ^°"'^ ^^^ 
or body, no king could have been less to the manner born, none could 



62 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

have seemed more out of place in the brilUant, poUshed, and heartle*ss 
court of which he was the center. This he felt himself, as others felt it, 
and he often regretted, even before the Revolution, that he could not 
abdicate and pass into a private station which would have been far more 
to his taste. He was an excellent horseman, he was excessively fond of 
hunting, he practised with delight the craft of locksmith. He was ready 
to listen to the advice of wiser men, but, and this was his fatal defect. 
His lack of ^^ ^^^ ^^ feeble will. He had none of the masterful qualities 
qualities of necessary for leadership. He was quite unable to see where 
p danger lay and where support was to be found. He was not 
unintelligent, but his intelligence was unequal to his task. He had no 
clear conception of either France or Europe. He was a poor judge of 
men, yet was greatly influenced by them. He gave way now to this in- 
fluence, which might be good, now to that, which might be bad. He 
was, by nature, like other princes of his time, a reforming monarch, but 
his impulses in this direction were intermittent. Necker said on one 
occasion, "You may lend a man your ideas, you cannot lend him your 
strength of will." "Imagine," said another, "trying to keep a dozen 
oiled ivory balls touching. I think you couldn't do it." So it was with 
the King's ideas. At the beginning of his reign Louis XVI was subject 
to the influence of Turgot, one of the wisest of statesmen. Later he was 
subject to the influence of the Queen — to his own great misfortune and 
also to that of France. 

The influence of women was always great in France under the Bour- 
bon monarchy, and Marie Antoinette was no exception to the rule. 
Furthermore that influence was frequently disastrous and here again in 
the case of the last queen of the Old Regime there was no exception, 
j^a^e ^^ ^^^ King proved inferior to his position, the Queen 

Antoinette proved no less inferior to hers. She was the daughter of 
the great Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and she had 
been married to Louis XVI in the hope that thus an alliance would be 
cemented between the two states which had so long been enemies. But, 
as many Frenchmen disliked everything about this alliance, she was 
unpopular and exposed to much malevolent criticism from the moment 
she set foot in France. She was beautiful, gracious, and vivacious. She 
possessed in large measure some of the very qualities the King so conspicu- 
ously lacked. She had a strong will, power of rapid decision, a spirit of 
initiative, daring. But she was lacking in wisdom, in breadth of judg- 



CORONATION OF LOUIS XVI 



63 




64 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

ment; she did not understand the temperament of the French people 
or the spirit of the times. Born to the purple, her outlook upon life did 
not transcend that of the small and highly privileged class to which she 
belonged. 

She had grown up in Vienna, one of the gayest capitals of Europe, 
jjgj. Her education was woefully defective. When she came 

defective to France to become the wife of Louis XVI, she hardly 

e uca ion knew how to write. She had had tutors in everything, 

but they had availed her little. She was willful and proud, unthinking 
and extravagant, intolerant of disagreeable facts, frivolous, impatient 
Her indiscre- °^ ^^^ restraint, fond of pleasure, and of those who minis- 
tion and her tered unto it. She committed many indiscretions both in 
unpopu an y j^^^ conduct and in the kind of people she chose to have 
about her. Because of these she was grossly calumniated and misjudged. 

Marie Antoinette was the center of a group of rapacious people who 
benefited by existing abuses, who were opposed to all reform. Quite 
unconsciously she helped to aggravate the financial situation and thus 
to hasten the catastrophe. 

At the beginning of his reign Louis intrusted the management of 
finances to a man of rare ability and courage, Turgot. Turgot had been 
intendant of one of the poorest provinces of France. By 
controller applying there the principles of the most advanced econo- 

of finance mists, which may be summed up as demanding the utmost 
liberty for industry and trade, the aboHtion of all artificial 
restrictions and all minute and vexatious governmental regulations, he 
had made his province prosperous. He now had to face the problem of 
the large annual deficit. The continuance of annual deficits could mean 
nothing else than ultimate bankruptcy. Turgot announced his program 
to the King in the words, "No bankruptcy, no increase of taxation, 
rr, ., no more borrowing." He hoped to extricate the national 

financial finances by two processes, by effecting economies in ex- 

policy penditures, and by developing public wealth so that the 

receipts would be larger. The latter object would be achieved by intro- 
ducing the regime of liberty into agriculture, industry, and commerce. 

Turgot was easily able to save many millions by suppressing useless 
expenditures, but in so doing he offended all who enjoyed those sinecures, 
and they flew to arms. The trade in foodstuffs was hopelessly and dan- 
gerously hampered up by all sorts of artificial and pernicious legislation 



THE REFORMS OF TURCOT 



65 




Marie Antoinette 
From the engraving by Geile after the painting by Vigee le Brun. 

and interference by the state. All this he swept aside, introducing free 
trade in grain. A powerful class of speculators was thus jurgot's 
offended. He abolished the trade guilds, which restricted economic 
production by Umiting the number of workers in each line, 
and by guarding jealously the narrow, inelastic monopoHes they had 



66 



BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 



established. Their abohtion was desirable, but all the masters of the 
guilds and corporations became his bitter enemies. Turgot abolished 
an odious tax, the royal corvee, which required the peasants to work 
without pay on the public roads. Instead, he provided that all such 
work should be paid for and 
that a tax to that end should 
be levied upon all landowners, 
whether belonging to the 
privileged or the unprivileged 
classes. The former were re- 
solved that this should not be, 
this odious equality of all be- 
fore the tax-collector. Thus 
His enemies ^11 those who 
force his battened and 

dismissal r . , j n- -i 

fattened off the 

old system combined in mer- 
ciless opposition to Turgot 
and, reinforced by the parle- 
ments particularly, and by 
Marie Antoinette, they 
brought great pressure upon 
the King to dismiss the ob- 
noxious minister. Louis 
yielded to the vehement im- 
portunities of the Queen and 
dismissed the ablest supporter the throne had. Both monarchs were 
grievously at fault, the King for his lack of will, the Queen for her will- 
fulness. "M. Turgot and I are the only persons who love the people," 
said Louis XVI, but he did not prove his love by his acts. A few days 
earHer Turgot had written him, "Never forget, your Majesty, that it 
was weakness which brought Charles I to the block." 

This incident threw a flood of light upon the nature of the Old Regime. 
„ . All reformers were given warning by the f^ll of Turgot. 

director of No changes that should affect the privileged classes! As 

the finances ^-j^g national finances could be made sound only by reforms 
(1776-1781) , . , , , .. , , , 

which would affect those classes, there was no way out. 

Reform was blocked. Necker, a Genevan banker, succeeded Turgot. 




Turcot 
After a pastel by Joseph Ducreux. 



CALONNE'S FINANCIAL POLICY 



67 



He was a man who had risen by his own efforts from poverty to great 
wealth. He, too, encountered opposition tlie instant he proposed econ- 
omies. He took a step which infuriated the members of the court. He 
pubhshed a financial report, showing the income and the expenditures of 
the state. This had never been 
done before, secrecy having 
hitherto prevailed in such mat- 
ters. The court was indignant 
that such high mysteries should 
be revealed to the masses, par- 
ticularly as the report showed 
just how much went annually 
in pensions to the courtiers, as 
free gifts for which they ren- 
dered no services whatever. 
For such unconscionable au- 
dacity Necker was overthrown, 
the King weakly yielding once 
more to pressure. 

This time the court took no 
chances, but secured a minister 
quite according to the heart's 
desire, in Calonne. No minis- 
ter of finance could be more agreeable. Calonne's purpose was to please, 
and please he did, for a while. The wand of Prospero was not more fehc- 
itous in its enchantments. The members of the court had only to make 
their wishes known to have them gratified. 

Calonne, a man of charm, of wit, of graceful address, had also a phi- 
losophy of the gentle art of spending which was highly appreciated by 

those about him. "A man who wishes to borrow must 

1 • 1 1 -11 111 Calonne, 

appear to be rich, and to appear rich he must dazzle by controller 

spending freely." Money flowed like water during these general 

halcyon times. In three years, in a time of profound 

peace, Calonne borrowed nearly $300^000.000. 

It seemed too good to be true, and it was, by far. The evil days drew 

nigh for an accounting. It was found in August, 1786, that the treasury 

was empty and that there were no more fools willing to loan to the state. 

It was a rude awakening from a blissful dream. But Calonne now 




Necker 
After the drawing by J. S. Duplessis. 



68 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

showed, what he had not shown before, some sense. He proposed a 
general tax which should fall upon the nobles as well as upon the com- 
moners. It was therefore his turn to meet the same opposition from 
the privileged classes which Turgot and Necker had met. He, too, was 
ballced, and resigned. 

His successor, Lomenie de Brienne, encountered a similar fate. As 
there was nothing to do but to propose new taxes, he proposed them. 
The parlemcnt of Paris immediately protested and demanded the con- 
vocation of the States-General, asserting the far-reaching principle that 
taxes can only be imposed by those who are to pay them. The King 
attempted to overawe the parlement, which, in turn, defied the King. 

All this, however, was no way to fill an empty treasury. 
Summoning • i i i i 

of the Finally the government yielded and summoned the States- 

States- General to meet in Versailles on May i, 1780. A new 

General . ... 

chapter, of incalculable possibilities, was opened in the 

history of France. Necker was recalled to head the ministry, and 
preparations for the coming meeting were made. 

The States-General, or assembly representing the three estates of the 
realm, the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners, was an old institu- 
tion in France, but one that had never developed as had the parHament 
of England. The last meeting, indeed, had been held 175 years before. 
The institution might have been considered dead. Now, in a great 
national crisis, it was revived, in the hope that it might pull the state 

out of the deplorable situation into which the Bourbon 
The States- 
General a monarchy had plunged it. But the States-General was a 

feudal thoroughly feudal institution and France was tired of 

institution . . 

feudalism. Its organization no longer conformed to the 

wishes or needs of the nation. Previously each one of the three estates 
had had an equal number of delegates, and the delegates of each estate 
had met separately. It was a three-chambered body, with two of the 
chambers consisting entirely of the privileged classes. There was ob- 
jection to this now, since, with two against one, it left the nation exactly 

where it had been, in the power of the privileged classes. 
voting in the They could veto anything that the third estate alone 
States- wanted; they could impose anything they chose upon the 

third estate, by their vote of two to one. In other words, 
if organized as hitherto, they could prevent all reform which in any way 
affected themselves, and yet such reform was an absolute necessity. Con- 



MEETING OF THE STATES-GENERAL 69 

suited on this problem the parlement of Paris pronounced in favor of the 
customary organization; in other words, itself a privileged body, it stood 
for privilege. The parlement immediately became as unpopular as it had 
previously been popular, when opposing the monarch. 

Necker, now showing one of his chief characteristics which was to 
make him impossible as a leader in the new era, half settled the question 
and left it half unsettled. He, like the King, lacked the power of deci- 
sion. He was a banker, not a statesman. It was announced that the 

third estate should have as many members as the two ^, . . ^ 

The third 
other orders combined. Whether the three bodies should estate given 

still meet and vote separately was not decided, but was double mem- 

bership 
left undetermined. But of what avail would be the double 

membership of the third estate — representing more than nine-tenths 

of the population — unless all three met together, unless the vote was 

by individuals, not by chambers; by head, as the phrase ran, and not 

by order. In dodging this question Necker was merely showing his own 

incapacity for strong leadership and was laying up abundant trouble for 

the immediate future. 

The States-General met on May 5, 1789. There were about 1,200 

members, of whom over 600 were members of the third estate. In 

reality, however, that class of the population had a much ^, 

•^ . , , ^ ^ . , , The opening 

larger representation as, 01 the 300 representatives elected of the States- 

by the clergy, over 200 were parish priests or monks, all General, 

. -Ill • M^y 5' i'^89 

commoners by origin and, to a considerable extent, m sym- 
pathy. Each of the three orders had elected its own members. At the 
same time the voters, and the vote was nearly universal, were asked to 
draw up a formal statement of their grievances and of the reforms they 
favored. Fifty or sixty thousand of these cahiers have ^j^^ cahiers 
come down to us and present a vivid and instructive criti- or memorials 
cism of the Old Regime, and a statement of the wishes of ° grievances 
each order. On certain points there was practical unanimity on the part 
of clergy, nobles, and commoners. All ascribed the ills from which the 
country suffered to arbitrary, uncontrolled government, all talked of the 
necessity of confining the government within just limits by The cahiers 
establishing a constitution which should define the rights of express the 
the king and of the people, and which should henceforth be nation for a 
binding upon all. Such a constitution must guarantee in- constitution 
dividual liberty, the right to think and speak and write, — henceforth 



70 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

no lettres de cachet nor censorship. In the future the States-General 
should meet regularly at stated times, and should share the law-making 
power and alone should vote the taxes, and taxes should henceforth be 
paid by all. The clergy and nobihty almost unanimously agreed in their 
cahiers to relinquish their exemptions, for which they had fought so reso- 
lutely only two years before. On the other hand, the third estate was 
willing to see the continuance of the nobility with its rights and honors. 
The third estate demanded the suppression of feudal dues. There was 
in their cahiers no hint of a desire for a violent revolution. They all ex- 
pressed a deep affection for the King, gratitude for his summoning of the 
States-General, faith that the worst was over, that now, in a union of all 
hearts, a way would easily be discovered out of the unhappy plight in 
which the nation found itself. 

An immense wave of hopefulness swept over the land. This opti- 
mism was based on the fact that the King, when consenting to call the 

States-General, had at the same time announced his accept- 
General . . 

optimism ance of several important reforms, such as the periodical 

of the meeting of. the States-General, its control of the national 

finances, and guarantees for the freedom of the individual. 

But the King's chief characteristic, as we have seen, was his feebleness of 

will, his vacillation. And from the day the deputies arrived in Versailles 

to the day of his violent overthrow this was a fatal factor in the history 

of the times. In his speech opening the States-General on May 5, the 

King said not a word about the thought that was in every one's mind, 

the making of a constitution. He merely announced that it had been 

called together to bring order into the distracted finances of the country. 

The inde- Necker's speech was no more promising. The government, 

cision of the moreover, said nothing about whether the estates should vote 

^ by order or by head. The crux of the whole matter lay there, 

for on the manner of organization and procedure depended entirely the 
outcome. The government did not come forward with any programme, 
even in details. It shirked its responsibility and lost its opportunity. 

A needless but very serious crisis was the result. The public was 
disappointed and apprehensive. Evidently the recent lib- 
over the eralism of the King had evaporated or he was under a pres- 

question of g^jj-g which he had no strength to withstand. A conflict 
organization 

between the orders began on May 6 which lasted until the 

end of June and which ended in embittering relations which at the out- 



MEETING OF THE STATES-GENERAL 



71 




72 



BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 



set had- seemed likely to be cordial. Should the voting be by order or by 
member, should the assembly consist of three chambers or of one? The 
difficulty arose in the need of verifying the credentials of the members. 
The nobles proceeded to verify as a separate chamber, by a vote of i88 
to 47; the clergy did the same, but by a smaller majority, 133 to 114. 




Costumes of the Three Okders 



But the third estate refused to verify until it should be decided that the 
three orders were to meet together in one indivisible assembly. This 
was a matter of life or death with it, or at least of power or impotence. 
Both sides stood firm, the government allowed things to drift, angry 
passions began to develop. Until organized the States-General could do 
no business, and no organization could be effected until this crucial ques- 
tion was settled. Week after week went by and the dangerous deadlock 
continued. Verification in common would mean the abandonment of 
the class system, voting by member and not by order, and 
the consequent preponderance of the third estate, which 
considered that it had the right to preponderate as rep- 
resenting over nine-tenths of the population. Fruitless at- 
tempts to win the two upper orders by inviting them to join the third 
estate were repeatedly made. Finally the third estate announced that 



Shall there 
be three 
chambers or 
only one? 



THE TENNIS COURT OATH 



73 



on June 1 1 it would begin verification and the other orders were invited 
for the last time. Then the parish priests began to come over, sym- 
pathizing with the commoners rather than with the privileged class of 
their own order. Finally on June 1 7 the third estate took the momentous 
step of declaring itself the National Assembly, a distinctly revolutionary 
proceeding. 

The King now, under pressure from the court, made a decision, highly 
unwise in itself and fooUshly executed. When, on June 20, the members 
of the third estate went to their usual meeting place they found the 
entrance blocked by soldiers. They were told that there w^as to be a 
special royal session later and that the hall was closed in order that 
necessary arrangements might be made for it, a pretext as miserable as 
it was vain. What did this action mean? No one knew, but every one 
was apprehensive that it meant that the assembly itself, in which such 
earnest hopes had centered, was to be brought to an untimely end and 
the country plunged into greater misery than ever by the failure of the 
great experiment. For a moment the members were dismayed and 
utterly distracted. Then, as by a common impulse, they rushed to a 
neighboring building in a side street, which served as a tennis court. 
There a memorable session occurred, in the large, unfinished hall. Lift- 
ing their president, the distinguished astronomer, Bailly, to a table, the 
members surged about him, ready, it seemed, for extreme measures. 
There they took the famous Tennis Court Oath. All the The Tennis 
deputies present, with one single exception, voted "never Court Oath 
to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances shall require 
until the constitution of the kingdom shall be estabhshed." 

On the 23d occurred the royal session on which the privileged classes 
counted. The King pronounced the recent acts of the third estate illegal 
and unconstitutional, and declared that the three orders ^j^ . 

should meet separately and verify their credentials. He session of 
rose and left the hall while outside the bugles sounded •'""^ ^^ 
around his coach. The nobiUty, triumphant, withdrew from the hall; 
the clergy also. But in the center of the great chamber the third estate 
remained, in gloomy silence. This was one of the solemn, critical mo- 
ments of history. Suddenly the master of ceremonies advanced, resplen- 
dent in his ofiicial costume. "You have heard the King's orders," he 
said. "His Majesty requests the deputies of the third estate to with- 
draw." Behind the grand master, at the door, soldiers were seen. Were 



74 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

they there to clear the hall? The King had given his orders. To leave 
the hall meant abandonment of all that the third estate stood for; to 
remain meant disobedience to the express commands of the King and 
probably severe punishment. 

The occasion brought forth its man. Mirabeau, a noble whom his 
fellow nobles had refused to elect to the States-General and who had 
then been chosen by the third es- 
tate, now arose and advanced im- 
petuously and imperiously toward 
the master of ceremonies, de 
Breze, and with thunderous voice 
exclaimed, "Go tell your master 
that we are here by the will of the 
people and that we shall not leave 
except at the point of the bayo- 

^ ^ , net." Then on mo- 

Defiance of 
the King tion of Mirabeau it 

expressed by ^^^S VOted that all 
Mirabeau 

persons who should 

lay violent hands on any mem- 
bers of the National Assembly 
would be "infamous and traitors 
to the nation and guilty of capi- 
tal crime." De Breze reported Mirabeau 

ii- J jz i 1 i iU T^- From an engraving by Ficsinger after a drawing 

the defiant eloquence to the Kmg. '' ^ i Guerin 

All eyes were fixed upon the lat- 
ter. Not knowing what to do he made a motion indicating weariness, 
then said: "They wish to remain, do they? Well, let them." 

Two days later a majority of the clergy and a minority of the nobility 
came over to the Assembly. On June 27 the King commanded the no- 
The King bility and clergy to sit with the third estate in a single 
yields assembly. Thus the question was finally settled, which 

should have been settled before the first meeting in May. The National 
Assembly was now complete. It immediately appointed a committee 
on the constitution. The National Assembly, accomplished by this 
fusion of the three estates, adopted the title Constituent Assembly 
because of the character of the work it had to do. 

No sooner was this crisis over than another began to develop. A 




THE TENNIS COURT OATH 



75 




76 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 



second attempt was made by the King, again inspired by the court, to 
suppress the Assembly or effectively to intimidate it, to regain the 
ground that had been lost. Considerable bodies of soldiers began to 
appear near Versailles and Paris. They were chiefly the foreign mer- 
. cenaries, or the troops from frontier stations, supposedly 

ence of the less responsive to the popular emotions. On July 1 1 Necker 

Assembly q^^^ ^ns colleagues, favorable to reform, were suddenly dis- 
threatened . , , ^.t i i i i , • 

missed and Necker was ordered to leave the country im- 
mediately. What could all this mean but that reaction and repression 
were coming and that things were to be put back where they had been? 
The Assembly was in great danger, yet it possessed no physical force. 
What could it do if troops were sent against it? 

The violent intervention of the city of Paris saved the day and 
gave the protection which the nation's representatives lacked, assuring 
Paris comes their continuance. The storming of the Bastille was an 
to the rescue incident which seized instantly the imagination of the 
world, and which was disfigured and transfigured by a mass of legends 
that sprang up on the very morrow of the event. The Bastille was a 
fortress commanding the eastern section of Paris. It was used as a 
state prison and had had maify distinguished occupants, among others 
Voltaire and Mirabeau, thrown into it by lettres de cachet. It was an 
odious symbol of arbitrary government and it was also a strong fortress 
which these newly arriving troops might use. There was a lai"ge discon- 
tented and miserable class in Paris; also a lively band of radical or lib- 
eral men who were in favor of reform and were alarmed and indignant 
at every rumor that the Assembly on which such hopes were pinned was 
in danger. Paris was on the side of the Assembly, and when the news of 
the dismissal of Necker arrived it took fire. Rumors of the most alarm- 
ing character spread rapidly. Popular meetings were addressed by im- 
promptu and impassioned orators. The people began to pillage the shops 
The storm- where arms w^ere to be found. Finally they attacked the 
ing of the Bas- Bastille and after a confused and bloody battle of several 
e, Ju y 14 j^Qm-'g i\^Q fortress was in their hands. They had lost about 
200 men, killed or wounded. The crowd savagely murdered the com- 
mander of the fortress and several of the Swiss Guard. Though char- 
acterized by these and other acts of barbarism, nevertheless the seizure 
of the Bastille was everyAvhere regarded in France and abroad as the 
triumph of liberty. Enthusiasm was widespread. The Fourteenth of 



1 



THE STORMING OF THE BASTILLE 



77 




78 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

July was declared the national holiday and a new flag, the tricolor, the 1 
red^ white, and blue, was adopted in place of the old white banner of 
the Bourbons, studded with the fleur-de-lis. At the same time, quite 
spontaneously, Paris gave itself a new form of municipal government, 
superseding the old royal form, and organized a new miUtary force, the 
National Guard, which was destined to become famous. Three days 
later Louis XVI came to the capital and formally ratified these changes. 
Meanwhile similar changes were made all over France. Municipal 
governments on an elective basis and national guards w^ere created every- 
where in imitation of Paris. The movement extended to rural France. 
There the peasants, impatient that the Assembly had let two 
outbreaks months go by without suppressing the feudal dues, took 
against things into their own hands. They turned upon their op- 

pressors and made a violent "war upon the chateaux," de- 
stroying the records of feudal dues if they could find them or if the owners 
gave them up; if not, frequently burning the chateaux themselves in order 
to burn the odious documents. Day after day in the closing week of 
July, 1789, the destructive and incendiary process w^ent on amid inev- 
itable excesses and disorders. In this method feudalism was abolished 
— not legally but practically. It remained to be seen what the effect 
of this victory of the people would be upon the National Assembly. 

Its effect was immediate and sensational. On the 4th of August, a 
committee on the state of the nation made a report, describing the inci- 
The night dents which were occurring throughout the length and 
session of breadth of the land, chateaux burning, unpopular tax- 
"^"^ collectors assaulted, millers hanged, lawlessness triumphant. 

It was night before the stupefying report was finished. Suddenly at 
eight o'clock in the evening, as the session was about to close, a noble- 
man, the Viscount of Noailles, rushed to the platform. The only reason, 
he said, why the people had devastated the chateaux was the heavy 
burden of the seignorial dues, odious reminders of feudalism. These 
must be swept away. He so moved and instantly another noble, the 
Duke d'Aiguillon, next to the King the greatest feudal lord in France, 
seconded the motion. A frenzy of generosity seized the Assembly. 
Privilege Noble vied with noble in the enthusiasm of renunciation, 

laid low ^\^Q Bishop of Nancy renounced the privileges of his order. 

Parish priests renounced their fees. Judges discarded their distinctions. 
Rights of chase, rights of tithes went by the board. Representatives 



THE SESSION OF AUGUST 4 



79 




8o BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

of the cities and provinces gave up their privileges, Brittany, Burgundy, 
Lorraine, Languedoc. A veritable delirium of joy swept in wave after 
wave over the Assembly. All night long the excitement continued 
amid tears, embraces, rapturous applause, a very ecstasy of patriotic 
abandonment, and by eight in the morning thirty decrees, more or less, 
had been passed and the most extraordinary social revolution that any 
A social nation has known had been voted. The feudal dues were 

revolution dead. Tithes were abandoned; the guilds, with their narrow 
restrictions, were swept away; no longer were oiJEices to be purchasable, 
but henceforth all Frenchmen were to be equally eligible to all public 
positions; justice was to be free; provinces and individuals were all to 
be on the same plane. Distinctions of class were abolished. The prin- 
ciple of equality was henceforth to be the basis of the state. 

Years later participants in this memorable session, in which a social 
revolution was accomplished or at least promised, spoke of it with ex- 
Louis XVI citement and enthusiasm. The astonishing session was 
proclaimed closed with a Te Deum in the chapel of the royal palace, 

the '* Re- 

storer of ^^ ^^^ suggestion of the Archbishop of Paris, and Louis 

French XVI, who had had no more to do with all this than you or 

^^^ I, was officially proclaimed by the Assembly the "Re- 

storer of French Liberty." 

Thus was the dead weight of an oppressive, unjust past lifted from 
the nation's shoulders. Grievances, centuries old, vanished into the 
night. That it needed time to work out all these tumultuous and rap- 
turous resolutions into clear and just laws was a fact ignored by the 
people, who regarded them as real legislation, not as a programme merely 
sketched, to be filled in slowly in detail. Hence when men awoke to the 
fact that not everything was what it seemed, that before the actual 
application of all these changes many adjustments must or should be 
made, there was some friction, some disappointment,' some impatience. 
The clouds speedily gathered again. Because a number of nobles and 
bishops had in an outburst of generosity relinquished all their privileges, 
it was not at all certain that their action would be ratified by even the 
Reaction majority of their orders and it was indeed likely that the 

threatened contrary would prove true. The contagion might not ex- 
tend beyond the walls of the assembly hall. And many 
even of those who had shared the fine enthusiasm of that stirring session 
might feel differently on the morrow. This proved to be the case, and 




THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONISTS 8i 

soon two parties appeared, sharply differentiated, the upholders of the 
revolution thus far accomplished and those who wished to undo it and 
to recover their lost advantages. The latter were called counter-revolu- 
tionaries. From this time on they were a factor, frequently highly sig- 
nificant, in the history of modern France. Although after the Fourteenth 
of July the more stiff-necked and angry of the courtiers, led by the Count 
•of Artois, brother of the King, had left the country and had begun that 
■*' emigration" which was to do much to embroil France with Europe, 
yet many courtiers still remained and, with the powerful Renewed 
aid of Marie Antoinette, played upon the feeble monarch, intrigues of 
The Queen, victim of slanders and insults, was tempera- ^ ^°^^ 
mentally and intellectually incapable of understanding or sympathizing 
with tlie reform movement. She stiffened under the attacks, her pride 
was fired, and she did what she could to turn back the tide, with results 
highly disastrous to herself and to the monarchy. Another feature of 
the situation was the subterranean intriguing, none the less real because 
difficult accurately to describe, of certain individuals who thought they 
had much to gain by troubling the waters, such as the Duke of Orleans, 
cousin of the King, immensely wealthy and equally unscrupulous, who 
nourished the scur\y ambition of overthrowing Louis XVI and of putting 
the House of Orleans in place of the House of Bourbon, intrigues of 
All through the Revolution we find such elements of per- the Duke of 
sonal ambition or malevolence, anxious to profit by foment- 
ing the general unrest. At every stage in this strange, eventful history 
we observe the mixture of the mean wdth the generous, the insincere with 
the candid, the hypocritical and the oblique with the honest and the 
patriotic. It was a web woven of mingled yarn. 

Such were some of the possible seeds of future trouble. In addition, 
increasing the general sense of anxiety and insecurity, was the fact that 
two months went by and yet the King did not ratify or 
accept the decrees of August 4, which, without his accept- of Louis 

ance, lacked legal force. Certain articles of the constitu- ^^^ inspires 

. ° alarm 

tion had been already drafted, and these, too, had not yet 

received the royal sanction. Was the King plotting something, or were 

the plotters about him getting control of him once more? The people 

lived in an atmosphere of suspicion; also thousands and thousands of 

them were on the point of starvation, and the terror of famine reinforced 

the terror of suspicion. 



82 



BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 



Ouf of this wretched condition of discontent and alarm was born 
another of the famous incidents of the Revolution. Early in October 
Popular rumors reached Paris that at a banquet offered at Versailles 

to some of the crack regiments which had been summoned 
there the tricolor had been stamped upon, that threats had 
been made against the Assembly, and that the Queen, by her presence, 
had sanctioned these outrages. " 



suspicion 
aroused 







The march 
of the 
women to 
Versailles 



The March of the Women to Versailles, October 5, 1789 
After an anonymous water-color. 

On October 5 several thousand women of the people, set in motion 
in some obscure way, started to march to Versailles, drawing cannon 
with them. It was said they were going to demand the 
reduction of the price of bread and at the same time to see 
that those who had insulted the national flag should be 
punished. They were followed by thousands of men, out of 
work, and by many doubtful characters. Lafayette, hastily gathering 
some of the Guards, started after them. That evening the motley and 
sinister crowd reached Versailles and bivouacked in the streets and in 
the vast court of the royal palace. All night long obscure preparations 
as for a battle went on. On the morning of the 6th the crowd forced the 
gates, killed several of the guards, and invaded the palace, even reaching 
the entrance to the Queen's apartments. The Queen fled to the apart- 
ments of the King for safety. The King finally appeared on a balcony, 
surrounded by members of his family, addressed the crowd, and promised 



THE GOVERNMENT REMOVED TO PARIS 



83 



..>'JI!HllilltilliMllh^ a ' 'WMm^J.-t . 




O -Q 



> fL, 






Ph q 



84 BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION 

them food. The outcome of this extraordinary and humiUating day was 

The royal that the King was persuaded to leave the proud palace of 

family Versailles and go to Paris to live in the midst of his so- 

forced to . 

leave called subjects. At two o'clock the grim procession began. 

Versailles ^]^q entire royal family, eight persons, packed into a single 

carriage, started for Paris, drawn at a walk, surrounded by the women, 

and by bandits who carried on pikes the heads of the guards who had 

been killed at the entrance to the palace. "We are bringing back the 

baker, and the baker's wife, and the baker's son!" shouted the women. 

At eleven o'clock that night Louis XVI was in the Tuileries. 

Ten days later the Assembly followed. The King and the Assembly 

were now under the daily supervision of the people of Paris. In reality 

they were prisoners. Versailles was definitely abandoned. 
The govern- . , . - 

ment From this moment dates the great mnuence of the capital. 

removed to ^ single city was henceforth always in position to dominate 

the Assembly. The people could easily bring their pressure 

to bear for they were admitted to the thousand or more seats in the 

gallery of the Assembly's hall of meeting and they considered that they 

had the freedom of the place, hissing unpopular speakers, vociferating 

their wishes. Those who could not get in congregated outside, arguing 

violently the measures that were being discussed within. Now and 

then some one would announce to them from the windows how matters 

were proceeding in the hall. Shouts of approval or disapproval thus 

reached the members from the vehement audience outside. 

REFERENCES 

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette: Lowell, The Eve of the French Revolution, 
pp. 11-24. 

Turcot: Say, Turgot, Chaps. V-VII; Morley, Miscellanies, Vol. II, pp. 41-57; 
111-162; Lowell, pp. 235-238; Robinson, Readings in European History, Vol. II, pp. 
386-391. 

Attempts at Reform: Mathews, The French Revolution, pp. 91-110. 

Summoning of the States-General: Mathews, pp. 111-118; Stephens, History 
of the French Revolution, Vol. I, Chap. I; Bourne, The Revolutionary Period in Europe, 
pp. 88-92; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII, pp. 96-118. 

The Cahiers: Lowell, Chap. XXI; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII, pp. 
159-169; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, Vol. I, pp. 248- 
251; University of Pennsylvania, Translations aiid Reprints, Vol. IV, pp. 24-36. 

Meeting of the States-General: Mathews, pp. 111-124; Stephens, Vol. I, 



REFERENCES 85 

pp. 55-67; MacLehose, From the Monarchy to the Republic, Chaps. IV-VI; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. VIII, pp. 145-158; Anderson, Constitutions and Documents, 
Nos. 1 and 2. 

The Fall of the Bastille: Mathews, pp. 125-137; Stephens, Vol. I, pp. 128- 
145; MacLehose, Chap. VIII; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII, pp. 159-169. 

The Fourth of August: Mathews, pp. 138-144; Anderson, No. 4; Acton, Lec- 
tures on the French Revolution, pp. 94-102; Bourne, pp. 100-103. 

The Fifth and Sixth of October: Mathews, pp. 144-149; Stephens, Vol. I, 
pp. 219-228; MacLehose, Chaps. XI and XII; Bourne, pp. 104-106. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

The States-General which met in May, 17S9, had in June adopted 
the name National Assembly. This body is also known as the Con- 

stituent Assembly, as its chief work was the making of a 
ration of the constitution. It had begun work upon the constitution 
Rights of while still in Versailles and the first fruit of its labors was 

the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a statement of the 
rights which belong to men because they are human beings, which are 
not the gift of any gov- 
ernment. The Declara- 
tion was drawn up in 
imitation of American 
usage. Lafayette, a hero 
of the American Revolu- 
tion, and now a prominent 
figure in the French, 
brought forward a draft 
of a declaration just be- 
fore the storming of the 
Bastille. He urged two 
chief reasons for its adop- 
tion; first it would pre- 
sent the people with a clear 
Proposed by conception of 
Lafayette j^j-^g elements 

of liberty, which, once 
understanding, they would 
insist upon possessing; and, secondly, it would be an invaluable guide 
for the Assembly in its work of elaborating the constitution. All proposi- 
tions could be tested by comparison with its carefully defined principles. 
It would be a guarantee against mistakes or errors by the Assembly 

86 




Lafayette 
From an engraving by Lavachez, after Duplessis-Bertaux 



DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN 87 

itself. Another orator paid a tribute to America, explaining why "the 

noble idea of this declaration, conceived in another hemi- ^ 

Discussion 
sphere ought to be transplanted to France. Opponents of concerning 

the proposal declared it useless and harmful because *^® Deciara- 

^ tion 

bound to distract the members from important labors, as 
tending to waste time on doubtful generalizations, as leading to hair- 
splitting and endless debate, when the Assembly's attention ought to be 
focused on the pressing problems of legislation and administration. The 
Assembly took the side of Lafayette and, after intermittent discussion, 
composed the notable document in August, 1789. As a result of the 
events of October 5, described above, the King accepted it. The Decla- 
ration, which has been called "the most remarkable fact in the history of 
the growth of democratic and republican ideas" in France, as "the gos- 
pel of modern times," was not the work of any single mind, 

.' o ; The Decla- 

nor of any committee or group of leaders. Its collabora- ration a 
tors were very numerous. The political discussions of the composite 

r • 1 1 r 1 • 1 product 

eighteenth century furnished many of the ideas and even 

some of the phrases. English and American example counted for much. 

The necessities of the national situation were factors of importance. 

The National Assembly has often been severely criticised for devoting 
time, in a period of crisis, to a Declaration which the critics in the same 
breath pronounce a tissue of abstractions, of doubtful philosophical 
theories, topics for everlasting discussion. "A tourney ugcessit f 
of metaphysical speculations" is what one writer calls it. the Decla- 
But a study of the situation shows that the idea of a dec- '"^^°^ 
laration and the idea of a constitution were indissolubly connected. The 
one was essential to the other in a country which had no historic princi- 
ples of freedom. French liberty could not from the nature of the case, like 
English liberty, slowly broaden down from precedent to precedent. It 
must begin abruptly and with a distinct formulation. After the enunci- 
ation of the principles would naturally come their conversion into fact. 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man laid down the principles of 
modern governments. The men who drew up that document believed 
these principles to be universally true and everywhere applicable. They 
did not establish rights — they merely declared them. Frenchmen well 
knew that they were composing a purely dogmatic text. But that such 
a text was extremely useful they believed. And the reason why they 
beUeved this was that they had a profound faith in the power of truth, of 



88 THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

reason. This was, as Michelet pointed out long ago, the essential orig- 
inality of the Constituent Assembly, this "singular faith in the power 
of ideas," this firm belief that "once formed and formulated in law the 
truth was invincible." These political dogmas seemed to the members of 
the Assembly so true that they thought they had only to proclaim them : 
to insure their efficiency in the actual conduct of governments. These 
men believed that they were inaugurating a new phase in the history of 
humanity, that, by solemnly formulating the creed of the future, they 
Importance were rendering an inestimable service, not to France alone 
attached but to the world. Though America had set an example, 

laration by' ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ France could "perfect" it for the other 
the National hemisphere and that the new declaration might perhaps 
ssem y have the advantage over the other of making "a loftier 

appeal to reason and of clothing her in a purer language." 

The seventeen articles of this creed asserted that men are free and 
equal, that the people are sovereign, that law is an expression of the 
Contents of popular will, and that in the making of it the people may 
the Declara- participate, either directly, or indirectly through their rep- 
resentatives, and that all officials possess only that author- 
ity which has been definitely given them by law. All those liberties of 
the person, of free speech, free assembly, justice administered by one's 
peers, which had been worked out in England and America were asserted. 
These principles were the opposite of those of the Old Regime. If in- 
corporated in laws and institutions they meant the permanent abolition 
of that system. 

As a matter of fact the expectation that the Declaration would con- 
stitute a new evangel for the world has not proved so great an exaggera- 
tion as the optimism of its authors and the pessimism of its critics would 
prompt one to think. When men wish anywhere to recall the rights of 
man it is this French document that they have in mind. The Declara- 
tion long ago passed beyond the frontiers of France. It has been studied, 

copied, or denounced nearly everywhere. It has been an 
Widespread f ' _ j j 

influence of indisputable factor in the political and social evolution of 

the Dec- modern Europe. During the past century, whenever a 

laration . , \ , ,., ^ . f ,...,. 

nation has aspired to liberty, it has sought its principles in 

the Declaration. "It has found there," says a recent writer, "five or 

sLx formulas as trenchant as mathematical propositions, true as the 

truth itself, intoxicating as a vision of the absolute." 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION 89 

The Declaration was, of course, only an ideal, a goal toward which 
society should aim, not a fulfilment. It was a list of principles, not the 
realization of those principles. It was a declaration of rights, not a guar- 
antee of rights. The problem of how to guarantee what was so suc- 
cinctly declared has filled more than a century of French history, and is 
still incompletely solved. We shall now see how far the Assembly 
which drafted this Declaration was willing or able to go in applying its 
principles in the constitution, of which it was the preamble. 

The constitution was only slowly elaborated. Some of its more 
fundamental articles were adopted in 1789. But numerous laws were 
passed in 1790 and 1791, which were really parts of the The new 
constitution. Thus it grew piece by piece. Finally all this Constitution 
legislation was revised, retouched, and codified into a single document^ 
which was accepted by the King in 1791. Though sometimes called 
the Constitution of 17S9, it is more generally and more correctly known, 
as the Constitution of 1791. It was the first written constitution France 
had ever had. Framed under very different conditions from those under 
which the constitution of the United States had been framed only a 
short time before, it resembled the work of the Philadelphia Convention 
in that it was conspicuously the product of the spirit of compromise. 
With the exception of the vigorous assertions of the Declaration of the 
Rights of Man, which was prefixed to it, the document was marked 
by-as great a moderation as was consistent with the comprehensive 
changes that were demanded by the overwhelming public opinion, as 
represented in the cahiers. It is permeated through and r^^ie funda- 
through with two principles, the sovereignty of the people, mental 
all governmental powers issuing from their consent and will, ^ 
and the separation of the powers sharply from each other, of the ex- 
ecutive, the legislative, and the judicial branches, a division greatly 
emphasized by Montesquieu as the sole method of insuring liberty. 

The form of government was to be monarchical. This was in conform- 
ity with the wishes of the people as expressed in the cahiers, and with the 
feelings of the Constituent Assembly. But whereas form- j-g^^^ugi^gg 
erly the king had been an absolute, henceforth he was to be a constitu- 
a hmited, a constitutional ruler. Indicative of the pro- ^^^^^^ ™°'^" 
found difference between these two conceptions, his former 
title, King of France and of Navarre, now gave way to that of King 
of the French. Whereas formerly he had taken what he chose out of 



90 THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

the national treasury for his personal use, now he was to receive a salary 
or civil Hst of the definite amount — and no more — of 25,000,000 francs. 
He was to appoint the ministeis or heads of the cabinet departments, 
The powers but he was forbidden to select members of the legislature 
of the King fQj- g^^,]^ positions. The English system of parliamentary 
government was deUberately avoided because it was beheved to be„ 
vicious in that ministers could bribe or influence the members of Par-i 
liament to do their will, which might not at all be the will of the people 
Ministers were not even to be permitted to come before the legislatun 
to defend or explain their policies. 

A departure from the principle of the separation of powers, in genera 
so closely followed, was shown in the granting of the veto power to th( 
king. The king, who had hitherto made the laws, was now deprived o: 
the law-making power, but he could prevent the immediate enforce 
ment of an act passed by the legislature. There was much discussioi 
The question over this subject in the Assembly. Some were opposed t( 
of the veto r^^y j^jj^^j Qf g, veto; others wanted one that should be ab 
solute and final. The Assembly compromised and granted the king a 
suspensive veto, that is, he might prevent the application of a law 
voted by two successive legislatures, namely, for a possible period of foui 
years. If the third legislature should indicate its approval of the law ir 
question, then it was to be put into operation whether the king assentec 
or not. 

The king was to retain the conduct of foreign affairs. He was 
to appoint and receive ambassadors, was to be the head of the navj 
and army, and was to appoint to higher offices. The Assembly at firsl 
thought of leaving him the right to make peace and war, then, fear- 
ing that he might drag the nation into a war for personal or dynastic 
and not national purposes, it decided that he might propose peace or 
war, but that the legislature should decide upon it. 

The legislative power was given by the Constitution of 1791 to a 

single assembly of 745 members, to be elected for a term of two years. 

^^ ,. Several of the deputies desired a legislature of two chambers, 

The consti- 1 • 1 1 1 , 

tution and Cited the example of England and America. But the 

creates a second chamber in England was the House of Lords, and 

Legislature ' 

the French, who had abolished the nobility, had no desire 

to establish an hereditary chamber. Moreover the English system was 

based on the principle of inequality. The French were founding their 



CITIZENS DIVIDED INTO TWO CLASSES 91 

new system upon the principle of equality. Even among the nobles 

themselves there was opposition to a second chamber — the provincial 

nobility fearing that only the court nobles would be members of it. On 

the other hand, the Senate of the United States w^as a concession to 

the states-rights feeling, a feeling which the French wished The Legis- 

to destroy by abolishing the provinces and the local pro- l^t^''^ to 

• . , . . , , , , ., . ^ J, consist of a 

vmcial patriotism, by thoroughly umiying trance. Thus single 

the plan of dividing the legislature into two chambers was chamber 
deliberately rejected, for what seemed good and sufficient reasons. 

How was this legislature to be chosen? Here we find a decided 
departure from the spirit and the letter of the Declaration, which had 
asserted that all men are equal in rights. Did not this mean uni- 
versal suffrage? Such at least was not the opinion of the Constituent 
Assembly, which now made a distinction between citizens, 
declaring some active, some passive. To be considered an active and 

active citizen one must be at least twenty-five years of age "tizens 
1 n • 1- 1 • 1 r passive, 

and must pay annually in direct taxes the equivalent of 

three days' wages. This excluded the poor from this class, and the 

number was large. It has been estimated that there were somewhat 

over 4,000,000 active citizens and about 3,000,000 passive. 

The active citizens alone had the right to vote. But even they did 

not vote directly for the members of the legislature. They chose electors 

at the ratio of one for every 100 active citizens. These electors must 

meet a much higher property qualification, the equivalent 

The lcsfis~ 
of from 150 to 200 days' wages in direct taxes. As a matter lature elected 

of fact this resulted in rendering eligible as electors only indirectly by 

the voters 
about 43,000 individuals. These electors chose the mem- 
bers of the legislature, the deputies. They also chose the judges under 
the new system. Thus the Constituent Assembly, so zealous in abolish- 
ing old privileges, was, in defiance of its own principles, estabhshing new 
ones. Political rights in the new state were made the monopoly of 
those who possessed a certain amount of property. There was no 
property qualification required for deputies. Any active citizen was 
eligible, but as the deputies were elected by the propertied men, they' 
would in all probability choose only propertied men — the electors 
would choose from their own class. 

The judicial power was completely revolutionized. Hitherto judges 
had bought their positions, which carried with them titles and privileges 



92 THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

and which they might pass on to their sons. Henceforth all judges, 
An elective of whatever rank in the hierarchy, were to be elected by the 
judiciary electors described above. Their terms were to range from 

two to four years. The jury, something hitherto absolutely unknown 
to modern France, was now introduced for criminal cases. Hitherto 
the judge had decided all cases. 

For purposes of administration and local government a new system 
was established. The old thirty-two provinces were abolished and 
France France was divided into eighty-three departments of nearly 

divided into uniform size. The departments were divided into arron- 
epar men s dissements, these into cantons, and these into municipali- 
ties or communes. These are terms which have ever since been in 
vogue. 

France, from being a highly centralized state, became one highly 
decentralized. Whereas formerly the central government was repre- 
France de- sented in each province by its own agents or office-holders, 
centralized ^^ye intendants and their subordinates, in the departments 
of the future the central government w^as to have no representatives. 
The electors, described above, were to choose the local departmental 
officials. It would be the business of these officials to carry out the de- 
crees of the central government. But what if they should disobey? 
The central government would have no control over them, as it would 
■not appoint them and could neither remove nor discipline them. 

The Constitution of 1791 represented an improvement in French 
government; yet it did not work well and did not last long. As a first 
Defects of experiment in the art of self-government it had its value, but 
the Con- it revealed inexperience and poor judgment in several 

s 1 u ion points which prepared trouble for the future. The execu- 

tive and the legislature were so sharply separated that communication 
between them was difficult and suspicion was consequently easily fostered. 
The king might not select his ministers from the legislature, he might 
not, in case of a difference of opinion with the legislature, dissolve the 
latter, as the English king could do, thus allowing the voters to decide 
between them. The king's veto was not a weapon strong enough to pro- 
tect him from the attacks of the legislature, yet it was enough to irritate 
the legislature, if used. The distinction between active and passive citi- 
zens was in plain and flagrant defiance of the Declaration of the Rights 
of Man, and inevitably created a discontented class. The administrative 



THE NATIONAL FINANCES 93 

decentralization was so complete that the efi&ciency of the national gov- 
ernment was gone. France was spUt up into eighty-three weakness of 
fragments and the coordination of all these units, their the central 
direction toward great national ends in response to the will sovemmen 
of the nation as a whole, was rendered extremely difficult, and in certain 
crises impossible. 

The work of reform carried out by the Constituent Assembly was on 
an enormous scale, immensely more extensive than that of our Federal 
Convention. We search history in vain for any compan- The work of 
ion piece. It is unique. Its destructive work proved dur- Constituent 
able and most important. Much of its constructive work, very ex- 
however, proved very fragile. Mirabeau expressed his t^i^sive 
opinion in saying that "The disorganization of the kingdom could not 
be better worked out." 

There were other dangerous features of the situation which inspired 
alarm and seemed to keep open and to embitter the relations of various 
classes and to foster opportunities for the discontented and , , . , 
the ambitious. The legislation concerning the Church tion con- 
proved highly divisive in its effects. It began wdth the ^1^^°^ *^® 
confiscation of its property; it was continued in the attempt 
profoundly to alter its organization. 

The States-General had been summoned to provide for the finances 
of the country. As the problem grew daily more pressing, as various 
attempts to meet it proved futile, as bankruptcy was imminent, the 
Assembly finally decided to sell for the state the vast properties of the 
Church. The argument was that the Church was not the owner but was 
merely the administrator, enjoying only the use of the vast wealth 
which had been bestowed upon it by the faithful, but bestowed for 
public, national purposes, namely, the maintenance of houses of wor- 
ship, schools, hospitals; and that if the state would otherwise provide 
for the carrying out of the intentions of these numerous benefactors, it 
might apply the property, which was the property of the nation, not of 
the Church as a corporation, to whatever uses it might see ^j^g j^^jg 
fit. Acting on this theory a decree was passed by the of the 
Assembly declaring these lands national. They constituted ^-i^l^ 
perhaps a fourth or a fifth of the territory of France and national 
represented immense wealth, amply sufficient, it was be- P''°p®"^ 
lieved, to set the public finances right. 



94 



THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 



m 



Serie 6o5 



L'ANQUATWEME 
DELALIBERTE. 



p<ijiii>le^-ixiu-jy<yrteu.r. 




But such property could only be used if converted into money and 
that would be a slow process, running through years. The expedient was 
The assignats devised of issuing paper money, as the government needed 
or paper it, against this property as security. This paper money 

bore the name of assignats. Persons receiving such assignats 
could not demand gold for them, as in the case of most of our paper 

money, but could use 
them in buying these 
lands. There was value, 
therefore, behind these 
paper emissions. The 
danger in the use of paper 
money, however, always 
is the incHnation, so easy 
to yield to, to issue far 
more paper than the value 
of the property behind it. 
This proved a temptation 
which the revolutionary 
assemblies did not have 
strength of mind or will 
to resist. At first the 
assignats were issued in 
limited quantities as the state needed the money, and the public willingly 
accepted them. But later larger and larger emissions were made, far out 
Rapid ^^ proportion to the value of the national domains. This 

depreciation meant the rapid depreciation of the paper. People would 
aLignats not accept it at its face value, as they had at first been 

wilHng to do. The value of the Church property was esti- 
mated in 1789 as 4,000,000,000 francs. Between 17S9 and 1796 over 
45,000,000,000 of assignats were issued. In 1789 an assignat of 100 
francs was accepted for 100 francs in coin. But by 1791 it had sunk 
from par to 82, and by 1796 to less than a franc. This was 
neither an honest nor an effective solution of the perplexing 
financial problem. It was evasion, it was in its essence re- 
pudiation. The Constituent Assembly did nothing toward 
solving the problem that had occasioned its meeting. It 
left the national finances in a worse welter than it had found them in. 



Ak Assignat 
Redrawn from a photograph. 



The Con- 
stituent As- 
sembly fails 
to solve the 
financial 
problem 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH 95 

Another piece of legislation concerning the Church, much more seri- 
3US in its effects upon the cause of reform, was the Civil Constitution of 
the Clergy. By act of the Assembly the number of dioceses was reduced 
[rom 134 to 83, one for each department. The bishops and priests were 
tienceforth to be elected by the same persons who elected -j-j^g ^j^jj 
the departmental officials. Once elected, the bishops were Constitution 
to announce the fact to the Pope who was not to have the ° ^ ^^^ 
right to approve or disapprove but merely to confirm. He was, then, to 
recognize them. If he refused, the ordinary courts could be invoked. 
The clergy were to receive salaries from the state, were, in other words 
to become state officials. The income of most of the bishops would be 
greatly reduced, that of the parish priests, on the other hand, would 
be considerably increased. 

This law was not acceptable to sincere CathoHcs, since it altered by 
act of politicians an organization that had hitherto been controlled abso- 
lutely from within. Bishops and priests were to be elected opposition 

Like other ofl&cials — that is Protestants, Jews, free think- to this Civil 
. . , . 1 . .1 V • r i- Constitution 

ers might participate m choosing the rehgious function- 
aries of the Catholic Church. Judges, who might, perhaps, be infidels, 
might yet play a decisive part. The Pope was practically ignored. 
His nominal headship was not questioned. His real power was largely 
destroyed. He would be informed of what was happening; his approval 
would not be necessary. 

The Assembly voted that all clergymen must take an oath to support 
this Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Only four of the 134 bishops con- 
sented to do so. Perhaps a third of the parish priests con- ReUgious 
sented. Those who consented were called the juring, those *iiscord 
who refused, the non-juring or refractory clergy. In due time elections 
were held as provided by the law and those elected were called the con- 
stitutional clergy. France witnessed the spectacle of two bodies of priests, 
one non-juring, chosen in the old way, the other elected by the voters 
indirectly. The scandal was great and the danger appalling, for reli- 
gious discord was introduced into every city and hamlet. Faith sup- 
ported the one body, the state supported the other — and the state 
embarked upon a long, gloomy, and unsuccessful struggle to impose its 
will in a sphere where it did not belong. 

Most fatal were the consequences. One was that it made the posi- 
tion of Louis XVI, a sincere Catholic, far more difl&cult and exposed 



96 THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

him to the charge* of being an enemy of the Revolution, if he hesitated 

in his support of measures which he could not and did not approve. 

Another was that it provoked in various sections, notably in Vendee, 

The non- ^^^ most passionate civil war France had ever known. 

juring clergy Multitudes of the lower clergy, who had favored and greatly 

ene^es of helped the Revolution so far, now turned against it for con- 

the science' sake. We cannot trace in detail this lamentable 

evou on chapter of history. Suffice it to say that the Constituent 

Assembly made no greater or more pernicious mistake. The Church had, 

as the issue proved, immense spiritual influence over the peasants, the : 

vast bulk of the population. Henceforth there was a divided allegiance 

— allegiance ,to the State, allegiance to the Church. Men had to make 

an agonizing choice. The small counter-revolutionary party of the 

nobles, hitherto a staff of ofhcers without an army, was now reinforced 

The counter- by thousands and millions of recruits, prepared to face any 

revolutionary sacrifices. And worldly intriguers could draw on this fund 

party im- . . 

mensely of piety for purposes which were anything but pious. The 

augmented j^gg^^ generated by politics is sufficient. There was no need 
of increasing the temperature by adding the heat of religious controversy. 
French Revolution or eternal damnation, such was the hard choice 
placed before the devout. 

"I would rather be King of Metz than remain King of France in such 
a position," said Louis XVI, as he signed the decree requiring an oath to 
Lamentable ^^^ Civil Constitution of the Clergy, "but this will end 
effect upon soon." The meaning of which remark was that the King 
°^^ was now through with his scruples, that he was resolved to 

call the monarchs of Europe to his aid, that he was determined to escape 
from this coil of untoward events which was binding him tighter and 
tighter, threatening soon to strangle him completely. The idea of a 
Shall the royal flight was not new. Marie Antoinette had thought 

King flee? ^f [^ ^Qj^g before. Mirabeau had counseled it under certain 
conditions which, however, were no longer possible. The nobles who had 
fled from France, some of them after the fall of the Bastille, more of 
them after the war upon the chateaux, hung upon the fringes of the 
kingdom, in Belgium, in Piedmont, and particularly in the petty Ger- 
man states that lined the fabled banks of the Rhine, eager to have the 
King come to them, eager to embroil Europe with France, that thus 
they might return to Paris with the armies that would surely be easily 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 



97 



victorious, and set back the clock to where it stood in 1789, incidentally 
belebrating that happy occurrence by miscellaneous punishment of all the 
Qotable revolutionists, so that henceforth imaginative spirits would hesi- 
tate before again laying impious hands upon the Lord's anointed, upon 
kings by divine right, upon nobles reposing upon rights no less sacred, 
upon the holy clergy. The Count of Artois, the proud and 
empty-headed brother of the King, one of the first to emi- party plots 

grate, had said: "We shall return within three months." vengeance 
^ ' and treason 

As a matter of fact he was to return only after twxnty- 

three years, a considerable miscalculation, pardonable, no doubt, in that 
extraordinary age in w^hich every one miscalculated. 

Louis XVI, wounded in his conscience, now planned to escape from 
Paris, to go to the eastern part of France, where there were French troops 
on which he thought he could rely. Then, surrounded by faithful ad- 
herents, he could reassume the kingly role and come back to Paris, 
master of the situation. 




The Tuilertes 
After an engraving by J. Rigaud. 



Disguised as a valet the King, accompanied by the Queen, disguised 
as a Russian lady, escaped from the Tuileries in the night of June 20, 
1 791, in a clumsy coach. All the next day they rolled. over the white 
highways of Champagne under a terrible sun, reaching at The flight 
about midnight the little village of Varennes, not far from *" Varennes 
the frontier. There they were recognized and arrested. The National 



98 



THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 




EFFECT OF THE KING'S FLIGHT 99 

Assembly sent three commissioners to bring them back. The return 
was for these two descendants of long lines of kings a veritable ascent of 
Calvary. Outrages, insults, jokes, ignominies of every kind were hurled 
at them by the crowds that thronged about them in the villages through 
which they passed — a journey without rest, uninterrupted, under the 
annihilating heat, the suffocating dust of June. Reaching Paris they 
were no longer overwhelmed with insults, but were received in glacial 
silence by enormous throngs who stood with hats on, as the royal coach 
passed by. The King was impassive but "our poor Queen," so wrote a 
friend, "bowed her head almost to her knees." Rows of National Guards 
stood, arms grounded, as at funerals. At seven o'clock that night they 
were in the Tuileries once more. Marie Antoinette had in these few days 
of horror grown twenty years older. Her hair had turned quite white, 
"like the hair of a woman of seventy." 

The consequences of this woeful misadventure were extremely grave. 
Louis XVI had shown his real feelings. The fidelity of his people to him 
was not entirely destroyed but was irremediably shaken. They no 
longer believed in the sincerity of his utterances, his oaths E^g^t of 
to support the Constitution. The Queen was visited with the King's 
contumely, being regarded as the arch-conspirator. The ^^ 
throne was undermined. A republican party appeared. Before this no 
one had considered a republic possible in so large a country as France. 
Republics were for small states like those of ancient Greece or medieval 
Italy. Even the most violent revolutionists, Robespierre, Danton, 
Marat, were, up to this time, monarchists. Now, however, France had 
a Jittle object lesson. During the absence of the King, the government 
of the Assembly continued to work normally. In the period following, 
during which Louis XVI was suspended from the exercise creates a 
of his powers, government went on without damage to the republican 
state. A king was evidently not indispensable. It has ^^^ ^ 
been correctly stated that the flight to Varennes created the republican 
party in France, a party that has had an eventful history since then, 
and has finally, after many vicissitudes, estabhshed its regime. 

But this republican party was very small. The very idea of a 
republic frightened the Constituent Assembly, even after the revelation 
of the faithlessness of the King. Consequently, in a revulsion of feel- 
ing, the Assembly, after a Httle, restored Louis XVI to his position, 
finished the Constitution, accepted his oath to support it, and on 



lOO THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

September 30, 1791, this memorable body declared its mission fulfilled 
and its career at an end. 

The National Assembly before adjournment committed a final and 
unnecessary mistake. In a mood of fatal disinterestedness it voted that 
A self- ^°^^ °^ ^^^ members should be ehgible to the next legisla- 

denying ture or to the ministry. Thus the experience of the past 

ordinance ^^^,^ years was thrown away and the new constitution was 
intrusted to hands entirely different from those that had fashioned it. 

REFERENCES 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man: Acton, Lectures on the French Revo- 
lution, pp. 102-108; Aulard, The French Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 145-160; Robinson 
and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, Vol. I, pp. 259-262; Anderson, 
Constitutions and Documents, pp. 58-60. 

The Making of the Constitution: Mathews, The French Revolution, pp. 150- 
165; Bourne, The Revolutionary Period in Europe, Chap. VIII; Anderson, No. 15. 

The Finances and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy: Bourne, Chap. IX; 
Acton, pp. 164-173; Stephens, History of the French Revolution, Vol. I, Chap. X; 
Robinson and Beard, Vol. I, pp. Tli-Til . 

The Flight to Varennes: Bourne, pp. 143-146; Mathews, pp. 176-179; Acton, 
pp. 174-192; Stephens, Vol. I, pp. 434-461. 



CHAPTER V 
THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

The Constitution was now to be put into force. France was to make 
the experiment of a constitutional monarchy in place of the old absolute 
monarchy, gone forever. In accordance with the provi- . 

sions of the document a legislature was now chosen. Its lative As- 
first session was held October i, 1701. Elected for a two- ^^"^^^ ^ 

' ^ (October 1, 

year term, it served for less than a single year. Expected i79l-Sep- 

to inaugurate an era of prosperity and happiness by apply- ^^J^^)^ ^°' 
ing the new principles of government in a time of peace, to 
consolidate the monarchy on its new basis, it was destined to a stormy 
life and to witness the fall of the monarchy in irreparable ruin. A few 
days before it met Paris, adept, as always, in the art of observing fit- 
tingly great national occasions, had celebrated "the end of the Revolu- 
tion." The Old Regime was buried. The new one w'as now to be 
installed. 

But the Revolution had not ended. Instead, it shortly entered 
upon a far more critical state. The reasons for this unhappy turn were 
grave and numerous. They were inherent in the situation, both in France 
and in Europe. Would the King frankly accept his new position, with 
no mental reservations, with no secret determinations, honestly, en- 
tirely? If so, and if he would by his conduct convince his people of his 
loyalty to his word, of his intention to rule as a constitutional monarch, 
to abide by the reforms thus far accomplished, with no thought of up- 
setting the new system, then there was an excellent chance The Legis- 
that the future would be one of peaceful development, for i^tive As- 

... ... . f ,. sembly favor- 

France was thoroughly monarchical m tradition, m feehng, able to the 

and in conviction. The Legislative Assembly was as monar- monarchy 

chical in its sentiments as the Constituent had been. But if the King's 

conduct should arouse the suspicion that he was intriguing to restore the 

Old Regime, that his oaths were insincere, then the people would turn 

against him and the experiment of a constitutional monarchy would be 



102 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

hazarded. France had no desire to be a republic, but it had a fixed and 
resolute aversion to the Old Regime. 

Inevitably, since the flight to Varennes, suspicion of Louis XVI was 
widespread. The suspicion was not dissipated by wise conduct on his 
part, but was increased in the following months to such a pitch that the 
^^ .j^ revolutionary fever had no chance to subside but necessarily 

distrust of mounted steadily. The King's views were inevitably col- 
Louis XVI ^j.gj i^y j^jg hereditary pretensions. Moreover, as we have 
seen, the religious question had been injected into the Revolution in 
so acute a form that his conscience as a Catholic was outraged. It was 
this that strained to the breaking point the relations of the Legislative 
Assembly and Louis XVI. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy gave 
Rebellion in rise to a bitter and distressing civil war. In the great 
the Vendee province of Vendee several thousand peasants, led by the 
refractory or non-juring priests, rose against the elected, constitutional 
priests and drove them out of the pulpits and churches. When the 
National Guards were sent among them to enforce the law they flew 
to arms against them, and civil war began. 

The Assembly forthwith passed a decree against the refractory 

priests, which only made a bad matter worse. They were required to 

_ take the oath to the Civil Constitution within a week. 

Decree 

against the If they refused they would be considered "suspicious" char- 
non-junng acters, their pensions wduld be suppressed, and they would 
be subject to the watchful and hostile surveillance of the 
government. Louis XVI vetoed this decree, legitimately using the 
power given him by the Constitution. This veto, accompanied by 
others, offended pubhc opinion, and weakened the King's hold upon 
Louis XVI France. It would have been better for Louis had he 
vetoes this never been given the veto power, since every exercise of 

decree 

it placed him in opposition to the Assembly and inflamed 
party passions. 

The other decrees which he vetoed concerned the royal princes and 
the nobles who had emigrated from France, either because they no 
longer felt safe there, or because they thought that by going to foreign 
countries they might induce their rulers to intervene in French affairs 
and restore the Old Regime. This was wanton playing with fire. For 
the effect on France might be the very opposite of that intended. It 
might so heighten and exasperate popular feeling that the monarchy 



DECLARATION OF PILLNITZ 103 

would be in greater danger than if left alone. This emigration, mostly 
of the privileged classes, had begun on the morrow of the storming of the 
Bastille. The Count d'Artois, younger brother of Louis XVI, had left 
France on July 15, 1789. The emigration became important in 1790, 
after the decree abolishing all titles of nobility, a decree The royalist 
that deeply wounded the pride of the nobles, and it was emigration 
accelerated in 179-1, after the flight to Varennes and the suspension of 
the King. It was later augmented by great numbers of non-juring 
priests and of bourgeois, who put their fidelity to the Catholic Church 
above their patriotism. 

It has been estimated that during the Revolution a hundred and fifty 
thousand people left France in this way. Many of them went to the little 
German states on the eastern frontier. There they formed an army of 
perhaps 20,000 men. The Count of Provence, elder brother of Louis XVI, 
was the titular leader and claimed that he was the Regent of France on the 
ground that Louis XVI was virtually a prisoner. The emigres cease- 
lessly intrigued in the German and other European courts, trying to insti- 
gate their rulers to invade France, particularly the rulers of Austria and 
Prussia, important military states, urging that the fate of one monarch 
was a matter that concerned all monarchs, for sentimental reasons and 
for practical, since, if the impious revolution triumphed in Treasonable 
France, there would come the turn of the other kings for intrigues of 
similar treatment at the hands of rebellious subjects. In ^ emigres 
1 79 1 the emigres succeeded in inducing the rulers of Austria and Prussia 
to issue the Declaration of Pillnitz announcing that the cause of Louis 
XVI was the cause of all the monarchs of Europe. This The Decla- 

Declaration was made conditional upon the cooperation of ^^^^^^ of 
1, T • 1 1 r • 1 , , 1 , Pillnitz, 

all the countries and, therefore, it was largely bluster and August 27, 

had no direct importance. It was not sufficient to bring on ^"^^^ 
war. But it angered France and increased suspicion of the King. The 
Legislative Assembly passed two decrees, one declaring that the Count 
of Provence would be deprived of his eventual rights to the -^^ ^ 
throne if he did not return to France within two months, against the 
the other declaring that the property of the emigres would ^^'S""^^ 
be confiscated and that they themselves would be treated as enemies, 
as guilty of treasonable conspiracy, if their armaments were not dis- 
persed by January i, 1792; also stating that the French princes and 
pubHc ofl&cials who had emigrated should be likewise regarded as con- 



I04 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

spiring against the state and would be exposed to the penalty of death, 
if they did not return by the same date. 

Louis XVI vetoed these decrees. He did, however, order his two 
brothers to return to France. They refused to obey out of "tenderness" 
. . ^,„ for the King. The Count of Provence, who had a gift for 

Louis XVI ® ^ . . . 

vetoes these misplaced irony and impertmence, saw lit to exercise it in 
decrees j^-^ ^^^^y to the Assembly's summons. If this was not pre- 

cisely pouring oil upon troubled waters, it was precisely adding fuel to 
a mounting conflagration, perhaps a natural mode of action for those 
who are dancing on volcanoes. Prudent people prefer to do their dancing 
elsewhere. 

More serious were the war clouds that were rapidly gathering. At 
the beginning of the Revolution nothing seemed less Ukely than a con- 
flict between France and Europe. France was pacifically inclined, and 
there were no outstanding subjects of dispute. Moreover the rulers of 
the other countries were not at all anxious to intervene. They were 
quite willing to have France occupied exclusively wdth domestic prob- 
lems, as thus the field would be left open for their intrigues. They were 
meditating the final partition of Poland and wished to be left alone while 
they committed that crowning iniquity. But gradually they came to 
see the menace to themselves in the new principles proclaimed by the 
French, principles of the sovereignty of the people and of the equal- 
ity of all citizens. Their own subjects, particularly the peasants and 
Gathering the middle classes, were alarmingly enthusiastic over the 
war clouds achievements of the French. If such principles should in- 
spire the same deeds as in France, the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI 
would not be the only one to suffer a shock. 

Just as the sovereigns were being somewhat aroused from this com- 
placent indifference in regard to their neighbor's principles, a change was 
going on in France itself, where certain parties were beginning to pro- 
claim their duty to share their happiness with other peoples, in other 
words, to conduct a propaganda for their ideas outside of France. They 
were talking of the necessity of warring against tyrants, and of hberating 
peoples still enslaved. 

Thus on both sides the temper was becoming warlike. W^hen such a 
mood prevails it is never difficult for willing minds to find sufficient 
pretexts for an appeal to arms. Moreover each side had a definite and 
positive grievance. France, as we have seen, viewed with displeasure 



TROUBLED FOREIGN RELATIONS 105 

and concern the formation of the royahst armies on her eastern bor- 
ders, with the connivance, or at least the consent, of the causes of 
German princes. On the other hand the German Empire friction 
had a direct grievance against France. When Alsace be- prance^and 
came French in the seventeenth century, a number of the German 
German princes possessed lands there and were, in fact, ^^^^^ 
feudal lords. They still remained princes of the German .Empire, and 
their territorial rights were guaranteed by the treaties. Only they were 
at the same time vassals of the King of France, doing homage to him 
and collecting feudal dues, as previously. When the French abolished 
feudal dues as we have seen, August 4, 1789, they insisted that these 
decrees applied to Alsace as well as to the rest of France. The German 
princes protested and asserted that the decrees were in violation of the 
Treaties of Westphaha. The German Diet espoused their Controversy 

cause. The Constituent Assembly insisted upon maintain- °^®'' ^^^ 

decrees of 
ing its laws, in large measure, but offered to modify them. August 4, 

The Diet refused, demanding the revocation of the obnox- ^'^^^ 
ious laws and the restoration of the feudal dues in Alsace. The contro- 
versy was full of danger for the reason that there were many people, 
both in France and in the other countries, who were anxious for war 
and who would use any means they could to bring it about. The gale 
was gathering that was to sweep over Europe in memorable devastation 
for nearly a quarter of a century. 

The Legislative Assembly was composed of inexperienced men, be- 
cause of the self-denying ordinance passed in the closing hours of the 
Constituent Assembly. Yet this Assembly was vested by the new Con- 
stitution with powers vastly overshadowing those left with the King. 
Nevertheless it was suspicious of him, as it had no control over the 
ministry and as it was the executive that directed the relations with 
foreign countries. 

There were, moreover, certain new forces in domestic politics of which 
the world was to hear much in the coming months. Certain political 
clubs began to loom up threateningly as possible rivals ^j^^ ^^^ ^^ 
even of the Assembly. The two most conspicuous were political 
the jacobin and the Cordelier clubs. These had originated '^^^^^ 
at the very beginning of the Revolution, but it was under the Legisla- 
tive Assembly and its successor that they showed their power. 

The Jacobin Club was destined to the greater notoriety. It was 



io6 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 



composed of members of the Assembly and of outsiders, citizens of Paris. 
As a political club the members held constant sessions and debated with 
great zeal and freedom the questions that were before the Assembly. 
Its most influential leader at this time was Robespierre, a radical democrat 
but at the same time a convinced monarchist, a vigorous opponent of the 




The Jacobin Club 
From a Dutch engraving, after Duplessis-Bertaux. 



Jacobin 
Club 



small republican party which had appeared momentarily at the time of 
the epoch-making flight to Varennes. The Jacobin Club grew steadily 
The more radical as the Revolution progressed and as its more 

conservative members dropped out or were eliminated. It 
also rapidly extended its influence over all France. Jacobin 
clubs were founded in over 2,000 cities and villages. AflShated with the 
mother club in Paris, they formed a vast network, virtually receiving 
orders from Paris, developing great talent for concerted action. The 
discipline that held this voluntary organization together was remarkable 
and rendered it capable of great and decisive action. It became a sort 
of state within the state and, moreover, within a state which was as de- 



THE CORDELIER CLUB 



107 



centralized and ineffective as it was itself highly centralized and rapid 
and thorough in its action. The Jacobin Club gradually became a rival of 
the Assembly itself and at times exerted a preponderant influence upon 
it, yet the Assembly was the legally constituted government of all France. 



I 




A Session at the Jacobin Club 
After an anonymous engraving. 



The Cordelier Club was still more radical. Its membership was de- 
rived from a lower social scale. It was more democratic. Moreover, 
since the flight to Varennes it was the hotbed of republican- The Corde- 
ism. Its chief influence was with the working classes of ^^^ ^^"^ 
Paris, men who were enthusiastic supporters of the Revolution, anxious 
to have it carried further, easily inflamed against any one who was ac- 
cused as an enemy, open or secret, of the Revolution. These men were 
crude and rude but tremendously energetic. They wxre the stuff of 
which mobs could be made, and they had in Danton, a lawyer, with a 
power of downright and epigrammatic speech, an able, astute, and ruth- 
less leader. The Cordelier Club, unlike the Jacobin, was limited to 
Paris; it had no branches throughout the departments. Like the Jaco- 
bins the Cordeliers contracted the habit of bringing physical pressure to 
bear upon the Government, of seeking to impose their will upon that of 
the representatives of the nation, the King and the Assembly. 



io8 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 




Here then were redoubtable machines for influencing the pubHc. 

They would support the Assembly as long as its conduct met their wishes, 

but thev were self-confident and self-willed enough to op- 
The Clubs . "^ , , . ., . ° , ^ 

and the pose it and to try to dommate it on occasion. Both were 

Legislative enthusiastic beUevers in the Revolution; both were lynx- 
eyed and keen-scented for any hostility to the Revolution, 
wilhng to go to any lengths to uncover and to crush those who should 
try to undo the reforms thus far accomplished. Both were suspicious 
of the King. 

They had inflammable material enough to work upon in the masses 
of the great capital of France. And these masses 
were, as the months went by, becoming steadily 
more excitable and exalted in temper. They wor- 
shipped liberty frantically and they expressed their 
Growth of a worship in picturesque and sinister 

radical ways. They considered themselves, 

temper -^ •' , • ■, 

among the called themselves the true patriots, 
people diXv^, like all fanatics, they were highly 

jealous and suspicious of their more moderate fel- 
low-citizens. The new wine, which was decidedly 
heady, was fermenting dangerously in their brains. 
They displayed the revolutionary colors, the tri- 
color cockade, everywhere and on all occasions. 
They adopted and wore the bonnet rouge or red- 
cap, which resembled the Phrygian cap of an- 
tiquity, the cap worn by slaves after their eman- 
cipation. This was now, as it had been then, the symbol of liberty. 

This is the period, too, when we hear of the planting of liberty poles 
or trees everywhere amid popular acclamation and with festivities cal- 
The Sans- culated to intensify the new-born democratic devotion, 
culottes Even in dress the new era had its radical innovations and 

symbolism. The Sansculottes now set the style. They were the men 
who abandoned the old style short breeches, the culottes, and adopted 
the long trousers hitherto worn only by workingmen and therefore a 
badge of social inferiority. 

Such then was the new quality in the atmosphere, such were the 
new players who were grouped around the margins of the scene. Their 
influence was felt all through its year of fevered history by the Legisla- 



LlBERTY Ca? and PiKE 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRATIC SENTIMENT 109 

tive Assembly, the lawful government of France. These men were all 
aglow with the great news announced in the Declaration of the Rights of 
Man, that the people are sovereign here below and that no divinity doth 
hedge about a king — that was sheer claptrap which had imposed on 
mankind quite long enough. Now that France was delivered from this 
sorry hallucination, now that the darkness was dispelled, let the new 
principles be fearlessly applied! 

The reaction of all this upon the Legislative Assembly was pro- 
nounced. One of the first actions of that Assembly was to abolish the 
terms, "Sire" and "Your Majesty," used in addressing the increasing 

King. Another evidence that the new doctrine of the sov- radicalism of 

. , , , , , the Legisla- 

ereignty of the people was not merely a rosy, yet unsub- tive 

stantial, figment of the imagination, but was a definite Assembly 
principle intended to be applied to daily politics, was the fact that 
when dissatisfied with the Assembly, the people crowded into its hall 
more frequently, expressing their disapproval, voicing in unambiguous 
manner their desires, and the Assembly, which believed in the doctrine 
too, did not dare resent its application, did not dare assert its inviola- 
bility, as the representative of France, of law and order. 

The signs of the times, then, were certainly not propitious for those 
who would undo the work of the Revolution, who would restore the 
King and the nobles to the position they had once occu- a vigor- 
pied and now lost. The pack would be upon them if they °"^ ^^^ 
• 1 rr^T 1 111 -1 1 1 • , suspicious 

tried. Ihe struggle would be with a rude and vigorous de- democracy in 
mocracy in which reverence for the old had died, which was existence 
reckless of traditions, and was ready to suffer and more ready to inflict 
suffering, if attempts were made to thwart it. Anything that looked 
like treachery would mean a popular explosion. Yet this moment, so 
inopportune, was being used by the King and Queen in secret but sus- 
pected machinations with foreign rulers, with a view to securing their aid 
in the attempt to recover the ground lost by the monarchy; was being 
used by the emigrant nobles in Coblenz and Worms for counter-revolu- 
tionary intrigues and for warlike preparations. Their only safe policy 
was a candid and unmistakable recognition of the new ^^^ emigres 
regime, but this was precisely what they were intellectually play with 
and temperamentally incapable of appreciating. They ® 
were playing with fire. This was all the more risky as many of their 
enemies were equally willing to play with the same dangerous element. 



no THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

There was in the Legislative Assembly a group of men called the 
Girondists, because many of their leaders, Vergniaud, Isnard, Buzot and 
others, came from that section of France known as the Gironde, in the 
southwest of France. The Girondists have enjoyed a poetic immortality 
ever since imaginative histories of the Revolution issued from the pen- 
sive pen of the poet Lamartine, who portrayed them as i pure and high- 
minded patriots caught in the swirl of a wicked world. The description 
was inaccurate. They were not disinterested martyrs in the cause of 
good government. They were a group of politicians whose discretion 
was not as conspicuous as their ambition. They paid for that vaulting 
emotion the price which it frequently exacts. They knew how to make 
their tragic exit from life bravely and heroically. They did not know, 
what is more difficult, how to make their lives wise and profitable to the 
The world. They were a group of eloquent young men, led by 

Girondists g^ romantic young woman. For the real head of this group 
that had its hour upon the stage and then was heard no more in the deaf- 
ening clamor of the later Revolution was Madarne Roland, their bright 
particular star. Theirs was a bookish outlook upon the world. They 
fed upon Plutarch, and boundless was their admiration for the ancient 
Greeks and Romans. They were republicans because those glorious fig- 
ures of the earlier time had been republicans; also because they imag- 
ined that, in a republic, they would themselves find a better chance to 
shine and to irradiate the world. Dazzled by these prototypes, they 
burned with the spirit of emulation. The reader must keep steadily in 
mind that the Girondists and the Jacobins were entirely distinct groups. 
They were, indeed, destined later to be deadly rivals and enemies. 

Such were the personages who played their dissimilar parts in the 
hot drama of the times. The stage was set. The background was the 
whole fabric of the, European state system, now shaking unawares. The 
action began with the declaration of war by France against Francis II, 
France de- ruler of Austria, and nephew of Marie Antoinette, a decla- 
F^anciril ^^ nation which opened a war which was to be European and 
AprU 20, world-wide, which was to last twenty-three long years, was 

^"^^^ to deform and twist the Revolution out of all resemblance 

to its early promise, was, as by-products, to give France a Republic, a 
Reign of Terror, a Napoleonic epic, a Bourbon overthrow and restora- 
tion, and was to end only with the catastrophic incident of Waterloo. 

That war was precipitated by the French, who sent an ultimatum to 



WAR WITH AUSTRIA 



III 



the Emperor concerning the emigres. Francis repHed by demanding the 
restoration to the German princes in Alsace of their feudal rights, and 
in addition, the repression in France "of anything that might alarm 



I 




Madame Roland 
A portrait taken from the cover of a bonbonniere in the Carnavalet Museum. 
Henderson's Symbol and Satire in the French Revohition 



From E. F. 



other States." War was declared ort April 20, 1792. It was desired by 

all the parties of the Legislative Assembly. Only seven members voted 

against it. The supporters of the King wanted it, believing ah parties 

that it would enable him to recover power once more by ^" *^® 

1 • 1 • 1 1 1 , • • • • Legislative 

rendermg mm popular as the leader m a victorious campaign Assembly in 

and by putting at his disposal a strong military force. ^^^*"" °^ ^^'" 

Girondists and Jacobins wanted it for precisely the opposite reason, as 



112 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

likely to prove that Louis was secretly a traitor, in intimate relations 
with the enemies of France. This once established, the monarchy could 
be swept aside and a republic installed. Only Robespierre and a few 
others opposed it on the ground that war always plays into the hands 
Robes ierre's °^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ powerful, that the people, on the other hand, 
opposition the poor, always pay for it and lose rather than gain, that 
to the war ^^,^^ j^ never in the interest of a democracy. They were, 
however, voices crying in the wilderness. There was a widespread feel- 
ing that the war was an inevitable clash between democracy, represented 
by France under the new dispensation, and autocracy, represented by 
the House of Hapsburg, a conflict of two eras, the past and the future. 
The national exaltation was such that the people welcomed the oppor- 
tunity to spread abroad, beyond the borders of France, the revolution- 
ary ideas of liberty and equality which they had so recently acquired 
and which they so highly prized. The war had some of the characteris- 
tics of a religious war, the same mental exaltation, the same dogmatic 
belief in the universal applicability of its doctrines, the same sense of 
duty to preach them everywhere; by force, if necessary. 

This war was a startling and momentous turning-point in the history 

of the Revolution. It had consequences, some of which were foreseen, 

most of which were not. It reacted profoundly upon the 

X Ii 6 Iff clx a ,^ 

turning-point French and before it was over it compromised their own 
in modern domestic liberty and generated a military despotism of 
greater efficiency than could be matched in the long his- 
tory of the House of Bourbon. 

First and foremost among the effects of the war was this: it swept 
the illustrious French monarchy away and put the monarchs to 
At the death. The war began disastrously. Instead of easily 

the^Fren^h conquering Belgium, which belonged to Francis II, as they 
suffer had confidently expected to, the French suffered severe 

reverses reverses. One reason wa"s that their army had been badly 

disorganized by the wholesale resignation or emigration of its officers, 
all noblemen. Another was the highly treasonable act of Louis XVI 
and Marie Antoinette, who informed the Austrians of the French plan 
of campaign. This treason of their sovereigns was not known to the 
French, but it was suspected, and it was none the less efiicacious. At 
the same time that French armies were being driven back, civil war, 
growing out of the religious dissensions, was threatening in France. 



BRUNSWICK'S MANIFESTO 113 

The Assembly, facing these troubles, indignantly passed two decrees, 
one ordering the deportation to penal colonies of all refractory or non- 
juring priests, the other providing for an army of 20,000 men for the 
protection of Paris. 

Louis XVI vetoed both measures. Then the storm broke. The 
Jacobins inspired and organized a great popular demonstration against 
the King, the object being to force him to sign the decrees. _, _. 

The Kin g 

Out from the crowded workingmen's quarters emerged, on vetoes two 

June 20, 1702, several thousand men, wearing the bonnet decrees of 

1 • 1 •, 1 . 1 , • , 1 the Assembly 

rouge, armed with pikes and carrying standards with the 

Rights of Man printed on them. They went to the hall of the Assem- 
bly and were permitted to march through it, submitting a petition in 
which the pointed statement was made that the will of insurrection 

25,000,000 people could not be balked by the will of one of June 20, 

1792 

man. After leaving the hall the crowd went to the Tuileries, 

forced open the gates and penetrated to the King's own apartments. 
The King for three hours stood before them, in the recess of a window, 
protected by some of the deputies. The crowd shouted, "Sign the de- 
crees! " " Down with the priests! " One of the ringleaders of the demon- 
stration, a butcher called Legendre, gained a notoriety that has sufficed 
to preserve his name from oblivion to this day, by shouting at the 
King, "Sir, you are a traitor, you have always deceived us, you are de- 
ceiving us still. Beware, the cup is full." Louis XVI refused to make 
any promises. His will, for once, did not waver. But he Louis XVI 
received a bonnet rouge and donned it and drank a glass of remains firm 
wine presented him by one of the crowd. The crowd finally withdrew, 
having committed no violence, but having subjected the King of 
France to bitter humiliation. 

Immediately a wave of indignation at this affront and scandal 
swept over France and it seemed likely that, after all, it might redound 
to the advantage of Louis, increasing his popularity by the sympathy 
it evoked. But shortly other events supervened and his The Duke 

position became more precarious than ever. Prussia joined °*. ^"^^s- 

• • 1 1 1 T^ 1 r -1 1 wick's mam- 

Austria in the war and the Duke of Brunswick, commander festo (July 

of the coalition armies, as he crossed the frontiers of France, ^^' ^'^^^^ 
issued a manifesto which aroused the people to a fever pitch of wrath. 
This manifesto had really been written by an emigre and it was redo- 
lent of the concentrated rancor of his class. The manifesto ordered the 



114 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

French to restore Louis XVl to complete liberty of action. It went 
further and virtually commanded them to obey the orders of the mon- 
archs of Austria and Prussia. It announced that any national guards 
who should resist the advance of the aUies would be punished as rebels 
and it wound up with the terrific threat that if the least violence or 
outrage should be offered to their Majesties, the King, the Queen, and 
the royal family, if their preservation and their liberty should not be 
immediately provided for, they, the allied monarchs, would "exact an 
exemplary and ever-memorable vengeance," namely, the complete de- 
struction of the city of Paris. 

Such a threat. could have but one reply from a self-respecting people. 
It nerved them to incredible exertions to resent and repay the insult. 
Patriotic anger swept everything before it. 

The first to suffer was the person whom the manifesto had singled 
out for special care, Louis XVI, now suspected more than ever of being 
the accomplice of these invaders who were breathing fire and destruc- 
tion upon the French for the insolence of managing their 
The insur- ^ . ^ r ^ * i 

rection of own affairs as they saw fit. On August lo, 1792, another, 

August 10, ^^^ |-]^jg ^j^g more formidable, insurrection, occurred in 

1792 . . . 

Paris. At nine in the morning the crowd attacked the 
Tuileries. At ten the King and the royal family left the palace and 
sought safety in the Assembly. There they were kept in a little room, 
just behind the president's chair, and there they remained for more 
than thirty hours. While the Assembly was debating, a furious combat 
was raging between the troops stationed to guard the Tuileries and the 
mob. Louis XVI, hearing the first shots, sent word to the guards to 
cease fire, but the officer who carried the command did not deliver it as 
long as he thought there was a chance of victory. The Swiss Guards 
were the heroes and the victims of that dreadful day. They defended 
the palace until their ammunition gave out and then, receiving the order 
to retire, they fell back slowly, but were soon overwhelmed by their 
assailants and 800 of them were shot down. The vengeance of the mob 
was frenzied. They themselves had lost hundreds of men. No quarter 
The was given. More than 5,000 people were killed that day. 

Tuileries The Tuileries was sacked and gutted. A sallow-complex- 

ioned young artillery officer, out of service, named Napo- 
leon Bonaparte, was a spectator of this scene, from which he learned a 
few lessons which were later of value to him. 



THE TUILERIES SACKED 




ii6 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 

The deeds of August lo were the work of the Revolutionary Com- 
mune of Paris. The former municipal government had been illegally- 
overthrown by the Jacobins who had then organized a new government 
The which they entirely controlled. The JacoBins, the masters 

Revolution- ^f p^j-is, had carefully prepared the insurrection of August 
mune of lo for the definite purpose of overthrowing Louis XVI. 

Paris jj^g menaces of the Duke of Brunswick had merely been 

the pretext. Now began that systematic dominance of Paris in the 
affairs of France which was to be brief but terrible. At the end 
The sus- ^^ ^^^ insurrection the Commune forced the Legislative 

pension of Assembly to do its wishes. Under this imperious and en- 
^ °^ tirely illegal dictation the Assembly voted that the King 

should be provisionally suspended. This necessitated the making of 
. ^ . a new constitution as the Constitution of 1701 was mon- 

A Consti- 111 

tutionai archical. The present assembly was a merely legisla- 

^°"^^^^°° tive body, not competent to alter the fundamental law. 

Therefore the Legislative Assembly^ although its term was 
only half expired, decided to call a Convention to take up the matter 
of the constitution. Under orders from the Paris Commune it issued 
Universal ^^^ decree to that effect and it made a further important 

suffrage decision. For elections to the Convention it abolished the 

procaime property suffrage, established by the Constitution of 1791, 
and proclaimed universal suffrage. France thus, on August 10, 1792, 
became a democracy. 

The executive of France was thus overthrown. During the interval 
before the meeting of the Convention a provisional executive council, 
with Danton at the head, wielded the executive power, influenced by the 

Commune. The Assembly had merely voted the suspen- 
mune im- sion of Louis XVI. The Commune, in complete disregard 
prisons the ^f ]^^ ^^^ [j^ defiance of the Assembly, imprisoned the 

King and Queen in the Temple, an old fortress in Paris. 
The Commune also arrested large numbers of suspected persons. 

This Revolutionary Commune or City Council of Paris was hence- 
forth one of the powerful factors in the government of France. It, and 
not the Legislative Assembly, was the real ruler of the country between 
the suspension of the King on August 10 and the meeting of the Con- 
vention, September 20. It continued to be a factor, sometimes predomi- 
nant, even under the Convention. For nearly two years, from August, 



THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES 



II 



1792, until the overthrow of Robespierre on July 27, 1794, the Com 

mune was one of the principal forces in politics. It sig- The Com- 

nalized its advent by suppressing the freedom of the press, ™""^ ^^- 
. . , , f ' stroys the 

one of the precious conquests 01 the reiorm movement, freedom of 

by defying the committees of the Assembly when it chose, ^^^ P''^^^ 
and by carrying through the infamous September Massacres, which lef 
a monstrous and indeli- 
ble stain upon the Revo- 
lution. The Commune 
was the representative of 
the lower classes and of 
the Jacobins. Its leaders 
wxre all extremely radi- 
cal, and some were des- 
perate characters who 
would stop at nothing to 
gain their ends. 

The September Mas- 
sacres grew out of the 
feeling of panic which 
seized the population of 
Paris as it heard of the 
steady approach of the 
Prussians and Austrians 
under the Duke of Bruns- 
wick. Hundreds of per- 
sons, suspected or charged 
with being real accom- 
plices of the invaders, 
were thrown into prison. 
Finally the news reached 
Paris that Verdun was besieged, the last fortress on the road to the capi- 
tal. If that should fall, then the enemy would have but a few days 
march to accomphsh and Paris would be theirs. The Com- The Com- 
mune and the Assembly made heroic exertions to raise and ™"°® *''■- 
forward troops to the exposed position. The Commune SeXmbe/ 
sounded the tocsin or general alarm from the bell towers. Massacres 
and unfurled a gigantic black flag from the City Hall bearing the inscrip- 




The Prison of the Temple 
After an anonymous engraving. 



ii8 



THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 



tion, "The Country is in Danger." The more violent members began 
to say that before the troops were sent to the front the traitors within 
the city ought to be put out of the way. "Shall we go to the front, 
leaving 3,000 prisoners behind us, who may escape and murder our 
wives and children?" they asked. 
The hideous spokesman and in- 
citer of the foul and cowardly 
slaughter was Marat, one of the 
most bloodthirsty characters of 
the time. The result was that 
day after day from September 2 
to September 6 the cold-blooded 
murder of non-juring priests, of 
persons suspected or accused of 
"aristocracy/' went on, without 
trial, the innocent and the guilty, 
men and women. The butchery 
was systematically done by men 
hired and paid by certain mem- 
bers of the Com- 
The Lesfis- 



Attitude of 

the Legisla- mune. 
tive Assem- lative Assembly was 
too terrified itself to 




bly 



Marat 



attempt to stop the infamous business nor could it have done so, had 
it tried. Nearly 1,200 persons were thus savagely hacked to pieces 
by the colossal barbarism of those days. 

One consequence of these massacres was to discredit the cause of 
the Revolution. Another was to precipitate a sanguinary struggle be- 
tween the Girondists who wished to punish the " Septembrists " and 
particularly their instigator, Marat, and the Jacobins, who either de- 
fended them or assumed an attitude of indifference, urging 
Effects of , 1 . ' & 6 

the Septem- that France had more important work to do than to spend 
ber Massa- j|-g ^.jj^g trying to avenge men who were after all "aristo- 
crats." The struggles between these factions were to fill 
the early months of the Convention which met on September 20, 1792, 
the elections having taken place under the gloomy and terrifying im- 
pressions produced by the September Massacres. On the same day, 
September 20, the Prussians were stopped in their onward march at 



THE VICTORY OF VALMY 119 

Valmy. They were to get no farther. The immediate danger was over. 
The tension was reheved. 

REFERENCES 

The Legislative Assembly: Mathews, The French Revolution, pp. 182-190. 

Beginning of the War with Europe: Mathews, pp. 191-199; Fyffe, History of 
Modern Europe (Popular Edition), Chap. I; Bourne, The Revolutionary Period in 
Europe, pp. 150-168; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, 
Vol. I, pp. 282-294. 

The Jacobin Club: Farmer, Essays in French History (The Club of the Jacobins), 

The Tenth of August and the September Massacres: Mathews, pp. 199-214; 
Stephens, History oj the French Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 107-150; Bourne, pp. 173-183. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE CONVENTION 

The third Revolutionary assembly was the National Convention, 
which was in existence for three years, from September 20, 1792, to 
October 26, 1795. Called to draft a new constitution, necessitated by 
the suspension of Louis XVI, its first act was the abolition of monarchy 
as an institution. Before its final adjournment three years later it had 
• J. _ drafted two different constitutions, one of which was never 

ments of the put in force, it had established a republic, it had organized 
Convention ^ provisional government with which to face the appalling 
problems that confronted the country, it had maintained the integrity 
and independence of the country, threatened by complete dissolution, 
and had decisively defeated a vast hostile coalition of European powers. 
In accomplishing this gigantic task it had, however, made a record for 
cruelty and tyranny that left the republic in deep discredit and made 
the Revolution odious to multitudes of men. 

On September 21, 1792, the Convention voted unanimously that 
"royalty is abolished in France." The following day it voted that all 
public documents should henceforth be dated from "the first year of the 
French Republic." Thus unostentatiously did the Republic make its 
France pro- appearance upon the scene, "furtively interjecting itself 
claimed a between the factions," as Robespierre expressed it. There 

republic ^ ^ 

(September was no solemn proclamation of the Republic, merely the 
22, 1792) indirect statement. As Aulard observes, the Conven- 

tion had the air of saying to the nation, "There is no possibility 
of doing otherwise." Later the Republic had its heroes, its victims, its 
martyrs, but it was created in the first instance simply because there 
was nothing else to do. France had no choice in the matter. It merely 
p^^ accepted an imperative situation. A committee was im- 

struggles mediately appointed to draw up a new constitution. Its 

Convention '^^^K however, was long postponed, for the Convention was 
distracted by a frenzied quarrel that broke out immediately 
between two parties, the Girondists and Jacobins. The latter party 



PARTY STRUGGLES IN THE CONVENTION i 

was often called the Mountain, because of the raised seats its membi 
occupied. It is not easy to define the differences between these factioi 
which were involved in what was fundamentally a struggle for pow 
Both were entirely devoted to the Republic. Between the two factic 
there was a large group of members, who swung now this way and n* 
that, carrying victory or defeat as they shifted their votes. They we 
the center, the Plain or the Marsh, as they were called because of t 
location of their seats in the convention hall. 

On one point, the part that the city of Paris should be permitted 
play in the government, the difference of opinion was sharp. The Girc 
dists represented the departments and insisted that Paris, The Giron 
which constituted only one of the eighty-three depart- *^*^*^ 
ments into which France was divided, should have only one eight 
third of influence. They would tolerate no dictatorship of t 
capital. On the other hand the Jacobins drew their strength frc 
Paris. They considered Paris the brain and the heart of the country 
center of hght to the more backward provinces; they believed that 
was the proper and predestined leader of the nation, that it was in 
better position than was the country at large to appreciate the sign 
cance of measures and events, that it was, as Danton said, "the ch 
sentinel of the nation." The Girondists were anxious to observe lej 
forms and processes; they disliked and distrusted the frequent appe; 

to brute force. The Jacobins, on the other hand, were „, , ^ 
•' . . . The Jacob 

not so scrupulous. They were rude, active, forceful, indif- 
ferent to law, if law stood in the way. They were realists and believed 
the application of force wherever and whenever necessary. Indeed th 
great emphasis was always put upon the necessity of the state. Tl: 
justified everything. In other words anything was legitimate that mig 
contribute to the safety or greatness of the Republic, whether legal 
not. 

But the merely personal element was even more important in div 
ing and envenoming these groups. The Girondists hated the thi 
leaders of the Jacobins, Robespierre, Marat, and Danton. Marat a 
Robespierre returned the hatred, which was thus easily fanned to fe\ 

heat. Danton, a man of coarse fiber but large mould, above ^ 

' ° ' Danton 

the pettiness of jealousy and pique, thought chiefly and 

instinctively only of the cause, the interest of the country at the giv 

moment. He had no scruples but he had a keen sense for the practi* 



122 



THE CONVENTION 



and the useful. He was anxious to work with the Girondists, anxious to 
smooth over situations, to avoid extremes, to subordinate persons to meas- 
ures, to ignore the spirit of faction and intrigue, to keep all republicans 

working together in the same har- 
ness for the welfare of France. His 
was the spirit of easy-going com- 
promise. ' But he met in the 
Girondists a stern, unyielding op- 
position. They would have noth- 
ing to do with him, they would 
not cooperate wdth him, and they 
finally ranged him among their 
enemies, to their own irreparable 
harm and to his. 

The contest between these 
two parties grew shriller and more 
vehement every day, ending in a 
life and death struggle. It be- 
gan directly after the meeting 
of the Convention, in the dis- 
cussion as to what should be 
done with Louis XVI, now that 
monarchy was abolished and 
the monarch a prisoner of state. 

The King had unquestionably been disloyal to the Revolution. He 
had given encouragement to the emigres and had entered into the hostile 
Louis XVI plans of the enemies of France. After the meeting of the 
Convention a secret iron box, fashioned by his own hand, 
had been discovered in the Tuileries containing documents 
which proved beyond question his treason. Ought he to have the full 
punishment of a traitor or had he been already sufficiently punished, by 
the repeated indignities to which he had been subjected, by imprison- 
ment, and by the loss of his throne? Might not the Convention stay its 
hand, refrain from exacting the full measure of satisfaction from one so 
sorely visited and for whom so many excuses lay in the general goodness 
of his character and in the extraordinary perplexities of his position, per- 
plexities which might have baffied a far wiser person, at a time when the 
men of clearest vision saw events as through a glass, darkly? But mercy 




Danton 
From an engraving by J. Caron, after the paint- 
ing by David. 



and the 
Revolution 



THE TRIAL OF LOUIS X\T 



123 



was not in the hearts of men, particularly of the Jacobins, who consid- 
ered Louis the chief culprit and unworthy of consideration, -pj^^ t^^^_ 
The Jacobins at first would not hear even of a trial. Robe- bins demand 
spierre demanded that the King be executed forthwith by execut/on^ 
a mere vote of the Convention, and Saint- Just, a satellite without 
of Robespierre, recalled that "Caesar was despatched in 

the very presence of the Senate 
without other formality than 
twenty-two dagger strokes." But 
Louis was given a trial, a trial, 
however, before a packed jury, 
which had already shown its 
hatred of him, before men who 
w^e at the same time his accusers 
and his judges. The trial lasted 
over a month, Louis himself ap- 
pearing at the bar, answering the 
thirty-three questions which were 
put to him and which covered his 
conduct during the Revolution. 
His statements were considered 
unsatisfactory. Despite the elo- 
quent defense of his lawyer the 
Convention voted on The trial of 
January 15, 1793, Louis xvi 
that "Louis Capet" was "guilty of 
conspiracy against the liberty of 
the Nation and of a criminal at- 
tack upon the safety of the state." The vote was unanimous, a few 
abstaining from voting but not one voting in the negative. Many of 
the Girondists then urged that the sentence be submitted to the people 
for their final action. Robespierre combatted this idea with vigor, evi- 
dently fearing that the people would not go the whole length. This- 
proposition was voted down by 424 votes against 283. 

What should be the punishment? Voting on this question began at 
eight o'clock in the evening of January 16, 1793. During twenty-four 
hours the 721 deputies present mounted the platform one after the 
other, and announced their votes to the Convention. At eight o'clock 







■'-"^ ^i^H 


1 




f^i^,J 




I 






•> 


1 


i. 




/^ 


\i 



Last Poktrait of Louis XVI 

After a crayon by Ducreux, three days before 
the execution. 



124 THE CONVENTION 

on the evening of the 17th the vote was completed. The president an- 
nounced the result. Number voting 721; a majority 361. For deatli 
387; against death, or for delay 334. 

On Sunday, January 21, the guillotine was raised in the square 
fronting the Tuileries. At ten o'clock Louis mounted the fatal step 
The execu- ^^^^ courage and composure. He was greater on the scaf- 
tion of the fold than he had been upon the throne. He endeavored to 
°^ speak. "Gentlemen, I am innocent of that of which I am 

accused. May my blood assure the happiness of the French." His 
voice was drowned by a roll of drums. He died with all the serenity of 
a profoundly religious man. 

The immediate consequence of the execution was a formidable in- 
crease in the number of enemies France must conquer if she was to live, 

and an intensification of the passions involved. France was 
Consequences . , . 

of the ex- at war With Austria and Prussia. Now England, Russia, 
ecution of Spain, Holland, and the states of Germany and Italy en- 
tered the war against her, justifying themselves by the 
"murder of the King," although all had motives much more practical 
than this sentimental one. It was an excellent opportunity to gain terri- 
tory from a country which was plainly in process of ' dissolution. Civil 
war, too, was added to the turmoil, as the peasants of the Vendee, 
100,000 strong, rose against the Republic which was the murderer of the 
king and the persecutor of the church. Dumouriez, an able commander 
of one of the French armies, was plotting against the ConvenLion and 
was shortly to go over to the enemy, a traitor to his country. 

The ground was giving way everywhere. The Convention stiffened 
for the fray, resolved to do or die, or both, if necessary. No govern- 
ment was ever more energetic or more dauntless. It voted to raise 
The Con- 300)000 troops immediately. It created a Committee of 

vention General Security, a Committee of Public Safety, a Revolu- 

creates ma- , . rr> -i i n r , 

chinery for tionary 1 ribunal, all parts of a machine that was intended 

strong to concentrate the full force of the nation upon the 

government ii r • i i . 

problem of national salvation and the annihilation of the 

republic's enemies, whether foreign or domestic. 

But while it was doing all this the Convention was floundering in 

the bog of angry party politics. Discussion was beginning its work of 

dividing the republicans, preparatory to consuming them. The first 

struggle was between the Girondists and the Jacobins. The Girondists 



THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI 



125 




126 THE CONVENTION 

wished to punish the men who had been responsible for the Septem- 
ber Massacres. They wished to punish the Commune for numerous 
illegal acts. They hated Marat and were able to get a vote 
Sv?ded*^^"^ from the Convention sending him before the Revolutionary 
against Tribunal, expecting that this would be the end of him. 

emse ves j^stead, he was acquitted and became the hero of the popu- 
lace of Paris, more powerful than before and now wilder than ever in 
his denunciations. Sanguinary Marat, feline Robespierre, 
dists " were resolved on the annihilation of the Girondists. Dan- 
marked for ^Q^^ thinking of France and loathing all this discord, when 
the nation was in danger, all this exaggeration of self, this 
contemptible carnival of intrigue, thinking that Frenchmen had enemies 
enough to fight without tearing each other to pieces, tried to play the 
peacemaker. But he had the fate that peacemakers frequently have. 
He accomplished nothing for France and made enemies for himself. 

The Commune, which supported the Jacobins, and which idolized 
Marat and respected Robespierre, intervened in this struggle, using, to 
cut it short, its customary weapon, physical force. It organized an 
insurrection against the Girondists, a veritable army of 80,000 men with 
sixty cannon. Marat, himself a member of the Convention, climbed to 
the belfry of the City Hall and with his own hand sounded the tocsin. 
This was Marat's day. He, self-styled Friend of the People, was the 
The insur- leader of this movement from the beginning to the end of 
rection of the fateful June 2, 1793. The Tuileries, where the Con- 
vention sat, w^as surrounded by the insurrectionary troops. 
The Convention was the prisoner of the Commune, the Government of 
France at the mercy of the Government of Paris. The Commune 
demanded the expulsion of the Girondist leaders from the Convention. 
The Convention protested indignantly against the conduct of the in- 
surgents. Its members resolved to leave the hall in a body. They 
were received with mock deference by the insurgents. The demand 
of their president that the troops disperse was bluntly refused until 
the Girondists who had been denounced should be expelled. The Con- 
Girondist vention was obliged to return to its hall conquered and de- 
ex^ttrd graded and to vote the arrest of twenty-nine Girondists, 
from the For the first time in the Revolution the assembly elected 
Convention ^^y ^j^g voters of France was mutilated. Violence had laid 
its hand upon the sovereignty of the people in the interest of the rule of 



THE CONSTITUTION OF 1793 127 

a faction. The victory of the Commune was the victory of the Jacobins, 
who, bv this treason to the nation, were masters of the Convention. 

But not yet masters of the country. Indeed this high-handed crime 
of June 2 aroused indignation and resistance throughout a large section 
of France. Had the departments no rights which the Commune of 
Paris was bound to respect? The Girondists called the departments to 
arms against this tyrannical crew. They responded with alacrity, ex- 
asperated and alarmed. Four of the largest cities of France, Lyons, 
Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Caen, took up arms, and civil war, born of 
politics, added to the civil war born of religion in the 
Vendee, and to the ubiquitous foreign war, made confusion threatened 

worse confounded. In all some sixty departments out of ^**^ "^^ 

■^ '■ war 

eighty-three participated in this movement, three-fourths 

of France. To meet this danger, to allay this strong distrust of Paris felt 
by the departments, to show them that they need not fear the dictator- 
ship of the Commune, the Convention drafted in great haste the con- 
stitution which it had been summoned to make, but which it had for 
months ignored in the heat of party politics. And the . 
Constitution of 1793, the second in the history of the stitution 
Revolution, guarded so carefully the rights of the depart- hastily 
ments and the rights of the people that it made Parisian 
dictation impossible. 

The Constitution of 1793 established universal suffrage. It also car- 
ried decentralization farther than did the Constitution of 1791, which 
had carried it much too far. The Legislature was to be elected only for 

a year, and all laws were to be submitted to the people for „ . . 

-' ' ... Provisions of 

ratification or rejection before being put into force. This the consti- 

is the first appearance of the referendum. The executive j'ig"" °^ 
was to consist of twenty-four members chosen by the legis- 
lature out of a list drawn up by the electors and consisting of one person 
from each department. 

This constitution worked like a charm in dissipating the distrust of 
the departments. Their rights could not be better safeguarded. Sub- 
mitted to the voters the constitution was overwhelmingly ^, 

" -^ The consti- 

ratified, over 1,000,000 votes in its favor, less than 12,000 tution ratl- 
in opposition. But this is the only way in which this con- ^^^ ,^y ^^® 
^'^ ■' ■' . people 

Stitution ever worked. So thoroughly did it decentralize 

the state, so weak did it leave the central government, that even those 



128 THE CONVENTION 

who had accepted it cordially saw that it could not be applied im- 
mediately, with foreign armies streaming into France from every direc- 
tion. What was needed for the crisis, as every one saw, was a strong 
government. Consequently by general agreement the constitution was 
immediately suspended, as soon as it was made. The suspension was 




The Hall of the Convention 



to be merely provisional. As soon as the crisis should pass it should 
be put into operation. Meanwhile this precious document was put into 
a box in the center of the convention hall and was much in the way. 

To meet the crisis, to enable France to hew her way through the 
tangle of complexities and dangers that confronted her, a provisional 
government was created, a government as strong as the one provided 
by the constitution was weak, as efficient as that would have proved in- 
efficient. The new system was frankly based on force, and it inaugurated 
a Reign of Terror which has remained a hissing and a by-word among 
the nations ever since. This provisional or revolutionary government was 
lodged in the Convention. The Convention was the sole nerve center 
whence shot forth to the farthest confines of the land the iron resolutions 



THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY 129 

that beat down all opposition and fired all energies to a single end. The 
Convention was dictator, and it organized a government ^ provisional 
that was more absolute, more tyrannical, more centralized government 
than the Bourbon monarchy, in its palmiest days, had 
ever dreamed of being. Montesquieu's sacred doctrine of the separa- 
tion of powers, which the Constituent Assembly had found so excellent, 
was ignored. 

The machinery of this provisional government consisted of two im- 
portant committees, appointed by the Convention, the Committee of 
Public Safety and the Committee of General Security; also of represen- 
tatives on mission, of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and of the political 
clubs and committees of surveillance in the cities and villages through- 
out the country. 

The Committee of Public Safety consisted at first of nine, later of 
twelve members. Chosen by the Convention for a term of a month, 
they were, as a matter of fact, reelected month after month, 
changes only occurring when parties changed in the As- mittee of 
sembly. Thus Danton, upon whose suggestion the original Public 
committee had been created, was not a member of the en- 
larged committee, reorganized after the expulsion of the Girondists. 
He was dropped because he censured the acts of June 2, and his enemy 
Robespierre became the leading member. At first this committee was 
charged simply with the management of foreign affairs and of the army, 
but in the end it became practically omnipotent, directing the state as 
no single despot had ever done, intervening in every department of the 
nation's affairs, even holding the Convention itself, of which in theory 
it was the creature, in stern and terrified subjection to itself. Installing 
itseff in the palace of the Tuileries, in the former royal apartments, it 
developed a prodigious activity, framing endless decrees, tossing thou- 
sands of men to the guillotine, sending thousands upon thousands 
against the enemies of France, guiding, animating, tyrannizing ruth- 
lessly a people which had taken such pains to declare itself free, only 
to find its fragile liberties, so resoundingly affirmed in the famous Decla- 
ration, ground to powder beneath this iron heel. No men ever w^orked 
harder in discharging an enormous mass of business of every kind 
than did the members of the Committee of Public Safety. Hour after 
hour, around a green table, they listened to reports, framed decrees, 
appointed ofi&cials. Sometimes overcome with weariness they threw 



I30 THE CONVENTION 

themselves on mattresses spread upon the floor of their committee 
room snatched two or three hours of sleep, then roused themselves to 
the racking work again. Under them was the Com- 
mmee°S" mittee of General Security whose business was really 
General police duty, maintaining order throughout the country, 

ecun y throwing multitudes of suspected persons into prison, 

whence they emerged only to encounter another redoubtable organ of 
this government, the Revolutionary Tribunal. 

This Tribunal had been created at Danton's suggestion. It was an 
extraordinary criminal court, instituted for the purpose of trying trai- 
The Revo- ^°^^ ^^'^ conspirators rapidly. No appeal could be taken 
lutionary from its decisions. Its sentences were always sentences 

Tribunal ^£ death. Later, when Robespierre dominated the Com- 

mittee of Public Safety, the number of judges was increased and they 
were divided into four sections, all holding sessions at the same time. 
Appointed by the Committee, the Revolutionary Tribunal servilely 
carried out its orders. It acted with a rapidity that made a cruel farce 
of justice. A man might be informed at ten o'clock that he was to ap- 
pear before the Revolutionary Tribunal at eleven. By two o'clock he 
was sentenced, by four he was executed. 

The Committee of Public Safety had another organ — the represen- 
tatives on mission. These were members of the Convention sent, two 
Representa- ^° ^^^^ department, and two to each army, to see that the 
tives on will of the Convention was carried out. Their powers were 

practically unlimited. They could not themselves pro- 
nounce the sentence of death but a word from them was sufficient to 
send to the Revolutionary Tribunal any one who incurred their sus- 
picion or displeasure. 

There were other parts of this governmental machinery, wheels 
within wheels, revolutionary clubs, affiliated with the Jacobin Club in 
Paris, revolutionary committees of surveillance. Through them the will 
of the great Committee of Public Safety penetrated to the tiniest hamlet, 
to the remotest corner of the land. The Republic was held tight in this 
closely-woven mesh. 

This machinery was created to meet a national need, of the most 
pressing character. The country was in danger, in direst danger, of 
submersion under a flood of invasion; also in danger of disruption from 
within. The authors of this system were originally men who appre- 



REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT 



131 



dated the critical situation, who grasped facts as they were, who were 

resolute to put down every foreign and domestic enemy, ^ 

^ -^ ^ ,11, Purpose of 

and who thrilled the people with their appeals to boundless, this gov- 

self-sacrificins; patriotism. Had this machinery been used ernmental 
° ^ . ... machinery 

in the way and for the purpose intended, it is not likely 

that it would have enjoyed the dismal, repellent reputation with pos- 




The Guillotine 
After a contemporary drawing. 

terity which it has enjoyed. France would have willingly endured and 
sanctioned a direct and strong government, ruthlessly subordinating per- 
sonal happiness and even personal security to the needs of national wel- 
fare. No cause could be higher, and none makes a wider or surer appeal 
to men. But the system was not restricted to this end. It was applied 
to satisfy personal and party intrigues and rancors, it was used to further 
the ambitions of individuals, it was crassly distorted and debased. 
The system did not spring full blown from the mind of any man or any 
group. It grew piece by piece, now this item being added, now that. 
Those who fashioned it believed that only by appealing to a system 
or arousing one of the emotions of men, fear, could the t»ased on fear 
government get their complete and energetic support. The success of 



132 THE CONVENTION 

the Revolution could not be assured simply by love or admiration of 
its principles and its deeds — that was proved by events, the difficulties 
had only increased. There were too many persons who hated the Revo- 
lution. But even these had an emotion that could be touched, the sense 
of fear, horror, dread. That, too, is a powerful incentive to action. "Let 
terror be the order of the day," such was the official philosophy of the 
creators of this government, and it has given their system its name. 
Punish disloyalty swiftly and pitilessly and you create loyalty, if not 
from love, at least from fear, which v/ill prove a passable substitute! 

The Committee of PubUc Safety and the Convention lost no time in 
striking a fast pace. To meet the needs of the war a general call for troops 
Activity of was issued. Seven hundred and fifty thousand men were 

the Com- secured. "What we need is audacity, and more audacity, 
mittee of , , , . „ , . . . , . 

Public and always audacity was a phrase epitomizing this as- 

Safety pg(.|. Qf history, a phrase thrown out by Danton, a man 

who knew how to sound the bugle call, knew how to mint the passion of 
the hour in striking form and give it the impress of his dynamic per- 
sonality. Carnot, one of the members of the Committee of Public 
Safety, performed herculean feats in getting this enormous mass of 
men equipped, disciphned, and officered. A dozen armies were the 
Great citizen result and they were hurled in every direction at the ene- 
armies raised j^jgg ^f France. Representatives of the Convention ac- 
companied each general, demanding victory of him or letting him know 
that his head would fall if victory were not forthcoming. Some failed, 
even under this terrific incentive, this literal choice between victory or 
death, and they went to the scaffold. It was an inhuman punishment 
but it had tremendous effects, inspiring desperate energy. The armies 
made superhuman efforts and were wonderfully successful. A group of 
fearless, reckless, and thoroughly competent commanders emerged 
rapidly from the ranks. We shall shortly observe the reaction of these 
triumphant campaigns upon the domestic pohtical situation. 

While this terrific effort to hurl back the invaders of France was going 
on, the Committee of Pubhc Safety was engaged in a lynx-eyed, com- 
prehensive campaign at home against all domestic enemies or persons 
accused of being such. By the famous law of "suspects," every one in 
The law of France was brought within its iron grip. This law was so 
"suspects" loosely and vaguely worded, it indicated so many classes 
of individuals, that under its provisions practically any one in France 



THE REIGN OF TERROR 133 

could be arrested and sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal. AU were 
guilty of treason, and punishable with death, who 'having done nothing 
against liberty have nevertheless done nothing for it." No guilty, and 
also no innocent, man could be sure of escaping so elastic a law, or, if 
arrested, could expect justice from a court which ignored the usual forms 
of law, which, ultimately, deprived prisoners of the right to counsel, and 
which condemned them in batches. Yet the Declaration of the Rights 
of Man, which had seemed a new evangel to an optimistic world, had 
stated that henceforth no one should be arrested or imprisoned except 
in cases determined by law and according to the forms of law. 

A tree is judged by its fruits. Consider the results in this case. In 
every city, town, and hamlet of France arrests of suspected persons 
were made en masse, and judgment and execution were -perror the 
rendered in almost the same summary and comprehensive order of the 
fashion. Only a few instances can be selected from this *^ 
calendar of crime. The city of Lyons had sprung to the defense of the 
Girondists after their expulsion from the Convention on June 2. It 
took four months and a half and a considerable army to put down the 
opposition of this, the second city of France. When this was accom- 
plished the Convention passed a fierce decree: "The city of Lyons is 
to be destroyed. Every house which was inhabited by the Treatment 
rich shall be demolished. There will remain only the homes °^ Lyons 
of the poor, of patriots, and buildings especially employed for industries, 
and those edifices dedicated to humanity and to education." The name 
of this famous city was to be obliterated. It was henceforth to be khown 
as the Liberated City {Commune afranchie). This savage sentence 
was not carried out, demolition on so large a scale not being easy. Only 
a few buildings were blown to pieces. But over 3,500 persons were ar- 
rested and nearly half of them were executed. The authorities began 
by shooting each one individually. The last were mowed down in 
batches by cannon or musketry fire. Similar scenes were enacted, 
though not on so extensive a scale, in Toulon and Marseilles. 

It was for the Vendee that the worst ferocities were reserved. The 
Vendee had been in rebellion against the Republic, and in the interest 
of counter-revolution. The people had been angered by the Treatment 
laws against the priests. Moreover the people of that sec- of the 
tion refused to fight in the Republic's armies. It was en- 
tirely legitimate for the government to crush this rebellion and it did so 



134 THE CONVENTION 

after an indescribably cruel war, in which neither side gave quarter. 
Carrier, the representative on mission sent out by the Convention, es- 
tablished a gruesome record for barbarity. He did not adopt the method 
followed by the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris which at least pretended 
to try the accused before sentencing them to death. This was too slow 
a process. Prisoners were shot in squads, nearly 2,000 of them. Drown- 
ing was resorted to. Carrier's victims were bound, put in boats, and the 
boats then sunk in the river Loire. Women and children were among the 
number. Even the Committee of Public Safety was shocked at Car- 
rier's fiendish ingenuity and demanded an explanation. He had the 
insolence to pretend that the drownings were accidental. "Is it my 
fault that the boats did not reach their destination?" he asked. The 
number of bodies in the river was so great that the water was poi- 
soned and for that reason the city government of Nantes forbade the 
eating of fish. Carrier was later removed by the Committee, but was 
not further punished by it, though ultimately he found his way to the 
guillotine. 

Meanwhile at Paris the Revolutionary Tribunal was daily sending 
its victims to the guillotine, after trials which were travesties of justice. 

.... , Guillotines were erected in two of the public squares and 
Activities of . X- -1 

the Revolu- each day saw its executions. Week after week went by, 
T^^^^^ai ^^^^ head after head dropped into the insatiable basket. 

Many of the victims were emigres or non-juring priests who 
had come back to France, others were generals who had failed of the 
indispensable victory and had been denounced as traitors. Others still 
were persons who had favored the Revolution at an earlier stage and had 
worked for it, but who had later been on the losing side in the fierce party 
contests which had rent the Convention. Nowadays pohtical struggles 
lead to the overthrow of ministers. But in France, as in Renaissance 
Italy, they led to the death of the defeated party, or at least of its 
leaders. As the blood-madness grew in intensity, it was voted by the 
Convention, in order to speed up the murderous pace, that the Rev- 
olutionary Tribunal after hearing a case for three days might then 
decide it without further examination if it considered "its conscience 
sufficiently enlightened." 

The Girondists were conspicuous victims. Twenty-one of them 
were guillotined on October 31, 1793, among them Madame Roland, 
who went to the scaft'old "fresh, calm, smiling," according to a friend 



THE REIGN OF TERROR 135 

who saw her go. She had regretted that she" had not been born a Spar- 
tan or a Roman," a superfluous regret, as was shown by ^, 

11 7 1 • • )) 1 ^^® execu- 

the manner of her death, "at only thirty-nme, words tion of the 

with which she closed the passionate Memoirs she wrote Girondist 

^ . leaders 

while in prison. Mounting the scaffold she caught sight 

of a statue of liberty. "O Liberty, how they've played with you!" she 
exclaimed. 

She had been preceded some days before by Marie Antoinette, the 
daughter of an empress, the wife of a king, child of fortune and of mis- 
fortune beyond compare. The Queen had been subjected The execu- 

to an obscene trial, accused of indescribable vileness, the V°° ?^ Marie 

Antoinette 
corruption of her son. "If I have not answered, she (October 16, 

cried, "it is because nature herself rejects such a charge ^"^^^^ 
made against a mother: I appeal to all who are here." This woman's 
cry so moved the audience to sympathy that the officials cut the trial 
short, allowing the lawyers only fifteen minutes to finish. The Queen 
bore herself courageously. She did not flinch. She was brave to the end. 
Marie Antoinette has never ceased to command the sympathy of pos- 
terity, as her tragic story and the fall to which her errors partly led and 
the proud and noble courage with which she met her mournful fate have 
never ceased to move its pity and respect. She stands in history as one 
of its most melancholy figures. 

Charlotte Corday, a Norman girl, who had stabbed the notorious 
Marat to death, thinking thus to free her country, paid the penalty 
with serenity and dignity. All through these months men witnessed a 
tragic procession up the scaffold's steps of those who were The Reign 
great by position or character or service or reputation; °^ Terror 
Bailly, celebrated as an astronomer and as the Mayor of Paris in tlie 
early Revolution; the Duke of Orleans, who had played a shameless 
part in the Revolution, having been demagogue enough to discard his 
name and call himself Philip Equality, and having infamously voted, as 
a member of the Convention, for the death of his cousin, Louis XVI; 
Barnave, next to Mirabeau one of the most brilliant leaders of the Con- 
stituent Assembly; and so it went, daily executions in Paris and still 
others in the provinces. Some fleeing the terror that walked by day 
and night, caught at bay, committed suicide, like Cordorcet, last of the 
philosophers, and gifted theorist of the Republic. Still others wandered 
through the countryside haggard, gaunt, and were finally shot down, as 



136 



THE CONVENTION 




THE COMMUNE OF PARIS 137 

beasts of the field. Yet all this did not constitute "the Great Terror," 
as it was called. That came later. 

Thus far there was at least a semblance or pretense of punishing the 
enemies of the RepubUc, the enemies of France. But now these odious 
methods were to be used as means of destroying political and personal 
enemies. Politics assumed the character and risks of war. 

We have seen that since August 10, 1792, there were two powers in 

the state, the Commune or Government of Paris and the Convention or 

Government of France, now directed by the Committee of 

Public Safety. These two had in the main cooperated thus mune versus 

far, overthrowing the monarchy, overthrowing the Giron- ^^® Conven- 
tion 
dists. But now dissension raised its head and harmony 

was no more. The Commune was in the control of the most violent 
party that the Revolution had developed. Its leaders were Hebert 
and Chaumette. Hebert conducted a journal, the Pere 
Duchesne, which was both obscene and profane and w^hich radicalism 
was widely read in Paris by the lowest classes. Hebert °^ *^® 
and Chaumette reigned in the City Hall, drew their strength 
from the rabble of the streets which they knew how to incite and hurl 
at their enemies. They were ultra-radicals, audacious, truculent. They 
constantly demanded new and redoubled apphcations of terror. For a 
while they dominated the Convention. Carrier, one of the Conven- 
tion's representatives on mission, was really a tool of the Commune. 

It was the Commune which now forced the Convention to attempt the 
dechristianization of France. For this purpose a new calendar was de- 
sired, a calendar that should discard Sundays, saints' days, 

,. . ... 1 1 T 1 . , , Attempted 

religious lestivals, and set up novel and entirely secular dechristiani- 

divisions of time. Henceforth the month was to be divided nation of 
not into weeks, but into decades or periods of ten days. 
Every tenth day was to be the rest day. The days of the months were 
changed to indicate natural phenomena, July becoming Thermidor, or 
period of heat; April becoming Germinal, or budding time; November 
becoming Brumaire, or period of fogs. Henceforth men were to date, 
not from the birth of Christ, but from the birth of Liberty. The Year 
One of Liberty began September 21, 1792. The world was young again. 
The day was divided into ten hours, not twenty-four, and a republican 
the ten were subdivided and subdivided into smaller units, calendar 
This calendar was made obHgatory. But great was the havoc created 



138 



THE CONVENTION 



by the new chronology. Parents were required to instruct their chil- 
dren in the new method of reckoning time. But the parents had 
been brought up on the old system and experienced much difficulty 
in teUing what time of day it was according to the new terminology. 
Watchmakers were driven to add another circle to the faces of their 
watches. One circle carried the 
familiar set of figures, the other car- 
ried the new. Thus was one dif- 
ficulty partially conjured away. 
The new calendar lasted twelve 
years. It was frankly and inten- 
tionally anti-Christian. The 
Christian era was repudiated. 

More important was the at- 
tempt to improvise a new religion. 
Reason was benceforth to be wor- 
shipped, no longer the Christian 
■Campaign God. A beginning 
against " su- was made in the cam- 

perstition " • r j i • - • 

paign tor dechristian- 

ization by removing the bells 
from the churches, "the Eternal's 
gewgaws," they were called, and 
by making cannon and coin out 
of them. Death was declared to be 
''but an eternal sleep" — thus 
Heaven, and Hell as well, was abolished. There was a demand that 
church spires be torn down "as by their domination over other build- 
ings, they seem to violate the principle of equality," and many were . 
consequently sacrificed. This sorry business reached its climax in the 
The Worship formal establishment by the Commune of Paris of the Wor- 
of Reason gj^jp ^j Reason. On November lo, 1793, the Cathedral of 
Notre Dame was converted into a "Temple of Reason." The cere- 
mony of that day has been famous for a century and its fame may last 
another. A dancer from the opera, wearing the three colors of the re- 
public, sat, as the Goddess of Reason, upon the Altar of Liberty, where 
formerly the Holy Virgin had been enthroned, and received the homage 
of her devotees. After this many other churches in Paris, and even in 




Mlle. Maillard, "Goddess of Reason 
After the painting by Garneray. 



FALL OF HfiBERTISTS AND DANTONISTS 139 

the provinces, were changed into Temples of Reason. The sacred vessels 
used in Catholic services were burned or melted down. In some cases 
the stone saints that ornamented, or at least diversified, the facades of 
churches, were thrown down and broken or burned. At Notre Dame in 
Paris they were boarded over, and thus preserved for a period when their 
contamination would not be feared or felt. Every tenth day services 
w^ere held. They might take the form of philosophical or political 
discourses, or the form of popular banquets or balls. 

The proclamation of this Worship of Reason was the high-water 
mark in the fortunes of the Commune. The Convention had been com- 
pelled to yield, the Committee of Public Safety to acquiesce in conduct of 
which it did not approve. Robespierre was irritated, partly because he 
had a religion of his own which he preferred and which he wished in time 
to bring forward and impose upon France, partly because as a member 
of the great Committee he resented the existence of a rival Robespierre 
so pow^erful as the Commune. The Hebertists had shot opposes the 
their bolt. Robespierre now shot his. In a carefully pre- 
pared speech he declared that "Atheism is aristocratic. The idea of a 
Supreme Being who watches over oppressed innocence and who punishes 
triumphant crime, is thoroughly democratic." He furtively urged on 
all attacks upon the blasphemous Commune, as when Danton declared, 
"These anti-religious masquerades in the Convention must cease." 

But Robespierre was the secret enemy of Danton as well, though for 
a very different reason. The Commune stood for the Terror in all its 
forms and demanded that it be maintained in all its vigor. On the other 
hand Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and their friends, ar- Robespierre ^ 
dent supporters of the Terror as long as it was necessary, opposes the 
believed that now the need for it had passed and wished ^° °^^ ^ 
its rigor mitigated and the system gradually abandoned. The armies 
of the RepubHc were everywhere successful, the invaders had been 
driven back, and domestic insurrections had been stamped out. Sick 
at heart of bloodshed now that it was no longer required, the Dan- 
tonists began to recommend clemency to the Convention. 

The Committee of Public Safety was opposed to both these factions, 
the Hebertists and the Dantonists, and Robespierre was at the center 
of an intrigue to ruin both. The description of the machinations and 
manoeuvres which went on in the Convention cannot be undertaken here. 
To make them clear would require much space. It must sufiice to say 



I40 THE CONVENTION 

that first the Committee directed all its powers against the Commune 

and dared on March 13, 1794, to order the arrest of Hebert 
The over- ^^ > y -n • 1 

throw of the and his friends. Eleven days later they were guiUotmed. 
Commune r^^^ rivalry of the Commune was over. The Convention 
was supreme. But the Committee had no desire to bring the Terror to 
an end. Several of its members saw their own doom in any lessening of 
its severity. Looking out for their own heads, they therefore resolved 
to kill Danton, as the representative of the dangerous policy of modera- 
tion. This man who had personified as no one else had done the national 
temper in its crusade against the allied monarchs, who had been the very 
central pillar of the state in a terrible crisis, who, when France was for 
a moment discouraged, had nerved her to new effort by the electrifying 
cry, "We must dare and dare again and dare without end," now fell a 
victim to the wretched and frenzied internecine struggles of the politicians 
because, now that the danger was over, he advocated, with his vastly 
Danton heightened prestige, a return to moderation and conciliation. 

advocates a Terror as a means of annihilating his country's enemies 
return to -^ 

moderate he approved. Terror as a means of oppressing his fellow- 
policies countrymen, the crisis once passed, he. deplored and tried 
to stop. He failed. The wheel was tearing around too rapidly. He 
was one of the tempestuous victims of the Terror. When he pleaded 
for peace, for a cessation of sanguinary and ferocious partisan politics, 
his rivals turned venomously, murderously against him. Conscious of 
his patriotism he did not believe that they would dare to strike him. A 
friend entered his study as he was sitting before the fire in revery and 
told him that the Committee of PubHc Safety had ordered his arrest. 
"Well, then, what then?" said Danton. "You must resist." "That 
means the shedding of blood,- and I am sick of it. I would rather be guil- 
lotined than guillotine," he replied. He was urged to fly. "Whither 
fly?" he answered. "You do not carry your country on the sole of 
your shoe," and he muttered, "They will not dare, they will not dare." 
But they did dare. The next day he was in prison. In prison he was 
heard to say, "A year ago I proposed the establishment of the Revolu- 
Arrest and tionary Tribunal. I ask pardon for it, of God and man." 

execution And again, "I leave everything in frightful confusion; not 
of Danton , ^, , ^ o & > 

one ot them understands anything of government. Robe- 
spierre will follow me. I drag down Robespierre. One had better be a 
poor fisherman than meddle with the governing of men." On the scaf- 



MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE 



141 



fold he exclaimed, "Danton, no weakness! " His last words were addressed 
to the executioner. " Show my head to the people; it is worth showing." 

The fall of Danton left Robespierre the most conspicuous person on 
tlie scene, the most influential member of the Convention and of the 
Committee of Public Safety. He was master of the Jaco- Robespierre 
bins. The Commune was filled with his friends, anxious to dictator 
do his bidding. The Revolutionary Tribunal was controlled and oper- 
ated by his followers. 
For nearly four months, 
from April 5toJuly27,he 
was practically dictator. 

A very singular des- 
pot for a people like the 
French. His qualities 
were not those which 
have characterized the 
leaders or the masses of 
that nation. The most 
authoritative French his- 
torian of this period, Au- 
lard, notes this fact. xAs 
a politician Robespierre 
was "astute, mysteri- 
ous, undecipherable. ' ' 
''What we see of his soul 
is most repellent to our 
French instincts of 
frankness and loyalty, 
Robespierre was a hypo- 
crite and he erected hyr 
pocrisy into a system of 
government." 

He had begun as a small provincial lawyer. He fed upon Rousseau, 
and was the narrow and anemic embodiment of Rousseau's ideas. He 
had made his reputation at the Jacobin Club, where he delivered speeches 
carefully retouched and finished, abounding in platitudes character of 
that pleased, entirely lacking in the fire, the dash, the stir- Robespierre 
ring, impromptu phrases of a Mirabeau or a Danton. His style wits 




Robespierre 
After a contemporary sketch attributed to Gerard. 



142 THE CONVENTION 

correct, mediocre, thin, formal, academic. "Virtue" was his stock in 
trade and he made virtue odious by his everlasting talk of it, by his 
smug assumption of moral superiority, approaching even the hazardous 
pretension to perfection. He was forever singing his own praises with 
a lamentable lack of humor and of taste. "I have never bowed beneath 
the yoke of baseness and corruption," he said. He won the title of "The 
Incorruptible." 

As a pohtician his policy had been to use up his enemies, and every 
rival was an enemy, by suggesting vaguely but opportunely that they 
were impure, corrupt, immoral, and by setting the springs in motion 
that landed them on the scaffold. He had himself stepped softly, warily, 
past the ambushes that lay in wait for the careless or the impetuous. 
By such processes he had survived and was now the man of the hour, 
immensely popular with the masses, and feared by those who disliked 
him. How would he use his power, his opportunity? 

He used it, not to bring peace to a sadly distracted country, not to 
heal the wounds, not to clinch the work of the Revolution, but to at- 
The " Reign tempt to force a great nation to enact into legislation the 
of Virtue " ideas of a highly sentimental philosopher, Rousseau. It 
was to be a Reign of Virtue. Robespierre's ambition was to make vir- 
tue triumphant, a laudable purpose, if the definition of virtue be satis- 
factory and the methods for bringing about her reign honorable and 
humane. But in this case they were not. 

Robespierre stands revealed, as he also stands condemned, by the 

two acts associated with his career as dictator, the proclamation of a 

new religion and the Law of Prairial altering for the worse the already 

monstrous Revolutionary Tribunal. Robespierre had once said in public, 

_. „ "If God did not exist we should have to invent Him." 

The Wor- 
ship of the Fortunately for a man of such poverty of thought as he, he 

Supreme ^jj^ ^q^ have to resort to invention but found God already 

invented by his idolized Rousseau. He devoted his atten- 
tion to getting the Convention to give official sanction to Rousseau's 
ideas concerning the Deity. The Convention at his instigation formally 
recognized "the existence of the Supreme Being and the Immortality 
of the Soul." On June 8, a festival was held in honor of the new religion, 
quite as famous, in its way, as the ceremonies connected with the inaugu- 
ration, a few months before, of the Worship of Reason. It was a won- 
drous spectacle, staged by the master hand of the artist David. A vast 



WORSHIP OF THE SUPREME BEING 



143 




S 



2 z 




144 THE CONVENTION 

amphitheater was erected in the gardens of the Tuileries. Thither 
marched the members of the Convention in solemn procession, carrying 
flowers and sheaves of grain, Robespierre at the head, for he was presi- 
dent that day and played the 
pontiff, a part which suited him. 
He set fire to colossal figures, 
symbolizing Atheism and Vice, 
and then floated forth upon a long 
rhapsody. ' ' Here, ' ' he cried from 
the platform, "is the Universe 
assembled. O Nature, how sub- 
lime, how exquisite, thy power! 

Card of Admission to the Festival of the How tyrants will pale at the 
Supreme Being ^^^-^^^ ^^ ^^^ jg^g^, „ ^ hundred 

thousand voices chanted a sacred hymn -which had been composed for 
the occasion and for which they had been training for a week. Robe- 
Robespierre spierre stood the cynosure of all eyes, at the very summit of 
Supreme ambition, receiving boundless admiration as he thus in- 

°°^ augurated the new worship of the Supreme Being, and 

breathed the intoxicating incense that arose. Profound was the irony 
of this scene, the incredible culmination of a century of skepticism. 
Some ungodly persons made merry over this mummery, indulging in 
indiscreet gibes at "The Incorruptible's" expense. The power of sar- 
casm was not yet dead in France, as this man who never smiled now 
learned. 

Two days later Robespierre caused a bill to be introduced into the 
Convention which showed that this delicate hand could brandish dag- 
gers as well as carry flowers and shocks of corn. The irreverent, the dan- 
gerous, must be swept like chaff into the burning pit. This bill, which 
The Law of became the Law of 2 2d Prairial, made the procedure of 
Prainai ^^g Revolutionary Tribunal more murderous still. The 

accused were deprived of counsel. Witnesses need not be heard in 
cases where the prosecutor could adduce any material or "moral" proof. 
Any kind of opposition to the government was made punishable with 
death. The question of guilt was left to the "enhghtened conscience" 
of the jury. The jury was purged of all members who were supposed to 
be lukewarm toward Robespierre. The accused might be sent before this 
packed and servile court either by the Convention, or by the Committee 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE 145 

of Public Safety, or by the Committee of General Security, or by the pub- 
lic prosecutor alone. In other words, any Hfe in France was at the mercy 
of this latter official, Fouquier-Tinville, a tool of Robespierre. The mem- 
bers of the Convention itself were no safer than others, nor were the 
members of the great Committee, if they incurred the displeasure of 
the dictator. 

Now began what is called the Great Terror, as if to distinguish it 
from what had preceded. In the thirteen months which had preceded 
the 2 2d of Prairial 1,200 persons had been guillotined in The Great 
Paris. In the forty-nine days between that date and the '^^"'o'" 
fall of Robespierre, on the 9th of Thermidor, 1,376 were guillotined. 
On two days alone, namely the 7th and 8th of July, 150 persons were 
executed. Day after day the butchery went on. 

It brought about the fall of Robespierre. This hideous measure united 
his enemies, those who feared him because they stood for clemency, and ■ 
those who feared him because, though Terrorists themselves, they knew 
that he had marked them for destruction. They could lose no more by 
opposing him than by acquiescing, and if they could overthrow him 
they would gain the safety of their heads. Thus in desperation and in 
terror was woven a conspiracy — not to end the Terror, but to end 
Robespierre. 

The storm broke on July 27, 1794 (the 9th of Thermidor). When 
Robespierre attempted to speak in the Convention, which had cowered 
under him and at his demand had indelibly debased itself by passing 
the infamous law of Prairial, he was shouted down. Cries of "Down 
with the tyrant! " were heard. Attempting to arouse the people in the 
galleries, he this time met with no response. The magic was gone. 
There was a confused, noisy struggle, lasting several hours. The arrest of 
Robespierre's voice failed him. "Danton's blood is chok- Robespierre 
ing him! " exclaimed one of the conspirators. Finally the Convention 
voted his arrest and that of his satellites, his brother, Saint-Just, and 
Couthon. 

All was not yet lost. The Revolutionary Tribunal was devoted to 
Robespierre and, if tried, there was an excellent chance that he would 
be acquitted. The Commune likewise was favorable to him. It took 
the initiative. It announced an insurrection. Its agents broke into his 
prison, released him, and bore him to the City Hall. Thereupon the 
'Convention, hearing of this act of rebellion, declared him and his asso- 



146 THE CONVENTION 

dates outlaws. No trial therefore was necessary. As soon as re-arrested 
he would be guillotined. During the evening and early hours of the 
night a confused attempt to organize an attack against the Convention 
went on. But a httle before midnight a drenching storm dispersed his 
thousands of supporters in the square. Moreover Robespierre hesitated, 
lacked the spirit of decision and daring. The whole matter was ended by 
the Convention sending troops against the Commune. At 
and execu- two in the morning these troops seized the Hotel de Ville 
tion of a^j^fj arrested Robespierre and the leading members of the 

Commune. Robespierre had been wounded in the fray, his 
jaw fractured by a bullet. 

He was borne to the Convention, which dechned to receive him. "The 
Convention unanimously refused to let him be brought into the sanctu- 
ary of the law which he had so long polluted," so ran the official report 
of this session. That day he and twenty others were sent to the guillo- 
tine. An enormous throng witnessed the scene and broke into wild 
acclaim. On the two following days eighty-three more executions took 
place. 

France breathed more freely. The worst, evidently, was over. In 
the succeeding months the system of the Terror was gradually aban- 
The Ther- doned. This is what is called the Thermidorian reaction, 
midorian The various branches of the terrible machine of government 

were either destroyed or greatly altered. A milder regime 
began. The storm did not subside at once, but it subsided steadily, 
though not without several violent shocks, several attempts on the 
part of the dwindling Jacobins to recover their former position by again 
letting loose the street mobs. The poHcy of the Convention came to be 
summed up in the cry "Death to the Terror and to Monarchy!" The 
Convention was now controlled by the moderates but it was unanimously 
republican. Signs that a monarchical party was reappearing, demand- 
ing the restoration of the Bourbons, but not of the Old Regime, prompted 
the Convention to counter-measures designed to strengthen and per- 
petuate the Repubhc. 

To accomphsh this and thus prevent the relapse into monarchy, the 
Convention drew up a new constitution, the third in six years. Though 
the radicals of Paris demanded vociferously that the suspended Con- 
stitution of 1793 be now put into force, the Convention refused, find- 
ing it too "anarchical" a document. Instead, it framed the Constitution 



THE CONSTITUTION OF 1795 147 

of 1795 or of the Year Three. Universal suffrage was abandoned, the 

motive being to reduce the poUtical importance of the jj^g qq^_ 

Parisian populace. Democracy, established on August 10, stitution of 

1792, was replaced by a suffrage based upon property. 

There was practically no protest. The example of the American states 

was quoted, none of which at that time admitted universal suffrage. The 

suffrage became practically what it had been under the monarchical 

Constitution of 1791. The national legislature was henceforth to consist 

of two chambers, not one, as had its predecessors. The ex- 

Provides for 
ample of America was again cited. "Nearly all the consti- a legislatxire 

tutions of these states," said one member, "our seniors in °^ *^° 

nouses 
the cause of liberty, have divided the legislature into two 

chambers; and the result has been public tranquillity." It was, howxver, 
chiefly the experience which France had herself had with single-cham- 
bered legislatures during the last few years that caused her to abandon 
that form. One of the chambers was to be called the Council of Elders. 
This was to consist of 250 members, who must be at least forty years 
of age, and be either married or widowers. The other, the Council of the 
Five Hundred, was to consist of members of at least thirty years of age. 
Tills council alone was to have the right to propose laws, which could, 
however, not be put into force unless accepted by the Council of 
Elders. 

The executive power was to be exercised by a Directory, consisting 
of five persons, of at least forty years of age, elected by the Councils, 
one retiring each year. The example of America was again The 
recommended but was not followed because the Conven- Directory 
tion feared that a single executive, a president, might remind the French 
too sharply of monarchy or might become a new Robespierre. 

The Constitution of 1795 was eminently the result of experience, 
not of abstract theorizing. It established a bourgeois re- ^jjg Republic 
public, as the Constitution of 1791 had established a no longer 
bourgeois monarchy. The Republic was in the hands, 
therefore, of a privileged class, property being the privilege. 

But the Convention either did not wish or did not dare to trust the 
voters to elect whom they might desire to the new Councils. Was there 
not danger that they might elect monarchists and so hand over the new 
republican constitution to its enemies? Would the members of the Con- 
vention, who enjoyed power, who did not wish to step down and out, and 



148 



THE CONVENTION 



yet who knew that they were unpopular because of the record of the 
Convention, stand any chance of election to the new legislature? Yet 
the habit of power was agreeable to them. Would the Republic be safe? 
Was it not their first duty to provide that it should not fall into hostile 

hands? 

Under the influence of such considerations the Convention passed 

rr.^ . two decrees, supplementary to the constitution, providing 

The decrees ; x-i ., i i i i i 

of the two- that two-thirds of each Council should be chosen from the 

thirds present members of the Convention. 

The constitution was overwhelmingly approved by the voters to 
whom it was submitted for ratification. But the two decrees aroused 
decided opposition. They were represented as a barefaced device where- 
by men who knew themselves unpopular could keep themselves in power 
for a while longer. Although the decrees were finally ratified, it was by 
much smaller majorities than had ratified the constitution. The vote of 
Paris was overwhelmingly against them. 

Nor did Paris remain contented with casting a hostile vote. It 
proposed to prevent this consummation. An insurrection was organized 
Opposition against the Convention, this time by the bourgeois and 
to the wealthier people, in reality a royalist project. The Conven- 

ecrees ^j^^ intrusted its defense to Barras as commander-in-chief. 

Barras, who was more a politician than a general, called to his aid a 
little Corsican officer twenty-five years old who, two years before, had 
helped recover Toulon for the Republic. This little Buona-Parte, for 
this is the form in which the famous name appears in the official report 
of the day, was an artillery officer, a believer in the efficacy of that 
weapon. Hearing that there were forty cannon in a camp outside the 
city in danger of being seized by the insurgents, Bonaparte sent a young 
dare-devil cavalryman, Joachim Murat, to get them. Murat and his 
men dashed at full speed through the city, drove back the insurgents, 
seized the cannon and dragged them, always at full speed, to the Tuile- 
ries, which they reached by six o'clock in the morning. As one writer 
has said, "Neither the httle general nor the superb cavalier dreamed 
that, in giving Barras cannon to be used against royaHsts, each was 
winning a crown for himself." 

The cannon were placed about the Tuileries, where sat the Conven- 
tion, rendering it impregnable. Every member of the Convention was 
given a rifle and cartridges. On the 13th of Vendemiaire (October 5) 



THE END OF THE CONVENTION 149 

on came the insurgents in two columns, down the streets on both sides 
of the Seine. Suddenly at four-thirty in the afternoon a ^j^^ insur- 
violent cannonading was heard. It was Bonaparte mak- rection of 
ing his debut. The Convention was saved and an astound- demiairT' 
ing career was begun. This is what Carl-yle, in hie vivid (October 5, 
way, calls "the whiff of grapeshot which ends what we ' 

specifically call the French Revolution," an imaginative and inaccurate 
statement. Though it did not end the Revolution, it did, however, 
end one phase of it and inaugurated another. 

Three weeks later, on October 26, 1795, the Convention declared it- 
self dissolved. It had had an extraordinary history, only a few aspects 
of which have been described in this brief account. In the ^j^^ Conven- 
three years of its existence it had displayed prodigious tion comes 
activity along many lines. Meeting in the midst of 
appalling national difficulties born of internal dissension and foreign 
war, attacked by sixty departments of France and by an aston- 
ing array of foreign powers, England, Prussia, Austria, its record of 
Piedmont, Holland, Spain, it had triumphed all along the victories 
line. Civil war had been stamped out and in the summer of 1795 three 
hostile states, Prussia, Holland, and Spain, made peace with France and 
withdrew from the war. France was actually in possession of the Aus- 
trian Netherlands and of the German provinces on the west bank of the 
Rhine. She had practically attained the so-called natural boundaries. 
War still continued with Austria and England. That problem was 
passed on to the Directory. 

During these three years the Convention had proclaimed the Republic 
in the classic land of monarchy, had voted two constitutions, had sanc- 
tioned two forms of worship and had finally separated ^j^^ q^^_ 
church and state, a thing of extreme difficulty in any vention and 
European country. It had put a king to death, had or- ® ^^" ^'^ 
ganized and endured a reign of tyranny, which long discredited the very 
idea of a republic among multitudes of the French, and which immeas- 
urably weakened the Republic by cutting off so many men who, had they 
lived, would have been its natural and experienced defenders for a full 
generation longer, since most of them were young. The Republic used 
up its material recklessly, so that when the man arrived who wished to 
end it and establish his personal rule, this sallow Italian Buona-Parte, 
his task was comparatively easy, the opposition being leaderless or poorly 



i^o THE CONVENTION 

led. On the other hand, the Republic had had its thrilling victories, its 
heroes, and its martyrs, whose careers and teachings were to be factors 
in the history of France for fully a century to come. 

The Convention had also worked mightily and achieved much in the 
avenues of peaceful development. It had given France a 
acWevements system of weights and measures, more perfect than the 
of the world had ever seen, the metric system, since widely 

adopted by other countries. It had laid the foundations 
and done the preliminary work for a codification of the laws, an 
The metric achievement which Napoleon was to carry to completion 
system g^^d of which he was to monopolize the renown. It de- 

voted fruitful attention to the problem of national education, believing 
with Danton, that "next to bread, education is the first need of the 
people," and that there ought to be a national system, free, compulsory, 
and entirely secular. The time has come, said the eloquent tribune, to 
The problem establish the great principle which appears to be ignored, 
of popular "that children belong to the Republic before they belong 
to their parents." A great system of primary and secon- 
dary education was elaborated but it was not put into actual operation, 
owing to the lack of funds. On the other hand, much was done for cer- 
tain special schools. Among the invaluable creations of 
Important ^ . " 

educational the Convention were certain institutions whose fame has 
mstitutions steadily increased, whose influence has been profound, the 
Normal School, the Polytechnic School, the Law and 
Medical Schools of Paris, the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, the Na- 
tional Archives, the Museum of the Louvre, the National Library, and 
the Institute. While some of these had their roots in earlier institu- 
tions, all such were so reorganized and amplified and enriched as to 
make them practically new. To keep the balance of our judgment 
clear we should recall these imperishable services to civilization ren- 
dered by the same assembly which is more notorious because of its 
connection with the iniquitous Reign of Terror. The Republic had its 
glorious trophies, its honorable records, from which later times were to 
derive inspiration and instruction. 

REFERENCES 

The Establishment of the Republic: Aulard, The French Revolution, Vol. II, 
Chap. IV; Fisher, H. A. L., The Republican Tradition in Europe, Chap. IV; Stephens, 



REFERENCES 151 

History of the French Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 150-180; Mathews, The French Revolu- 
tion, pp. 207-224. 

Trial and Execution of Loxns XVI: Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution, 
pp. 249-255; Carlyle, French Revolution, Vol. Ill, Book II, Chaps. VI-VIII (section 
entitled "Regicide"). 

The Reign of Terror: Mathews, pp. 224-251; Stephens, Vol. II, Chaps. X and 
XI; Gardiner, B. M., The French Revolution, pp. 156-187; Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, Vol. VIII, pp. 338-371. 

Overthrow of Hebertists and Dantonists: Gardiner, pp. 188-204. 

Robespierre: Mathews, pp. 252-265; Morley, Miscellanies, Vol. I, (Essay on 
Robespierre); Gardiner, pp. 204-220; Acton, Chap. XIX. 

Reaction after the Overthrow of Robespierre: Mathews, pp. 266-285; 
Gardiner, pp. 221-253; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII, pp. 372-397. 

The Constitution of 1795: Bourne, The Revolutionary Period in Europe, pp. 
223-231; Aulard, Vol. Ill, Chap. VII. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE DIRECTORY 



Its first 
problem the 
prosecution 
of the war 



The Directory lasted from October 27, 1795, to November 19, 1799. 

The Direc- ^^ ^°^^ ^^^ name from the form of the executive branch of 

tory (1795- the Republic, as determined by the Constitution of 1795. 

Its history of four years was troubled, uncertain, and ended 

in its violent overthrow. 

Its first and most pressing problem was the continued prosecution 
of the war. As already stated, Prussia, Spain, and Holland had with- 
drawn from the coalition 
and had made peace with 
the Convention. But Eng- 
land, Austria, Piedmont, and 
the lesser German states were still in 
arms against the Republic. The first 
duty "of the Directory was, therefore, to 
continue the war with them and to defeat 
them. France had already overrun the 
Austrian Netherlands, that is, modern 
Belgium, and had declared them annexed 
to France. But to compel Austria, the 
owner, to recognize this annexation she 
must be beaten. The Directory, therefore 
proceeded with vigor to concentrate its 
attention upon this object. As France 
had thrown back her invaders, the fight- 
ing was no longer on French soil. She 
now became the invader, and that long series of conquests of various 
The cam- European countries by aggressive French armies began, 
paign which was to end only twenty years later with the fall of 

Srii ^^^ greatest commander of modern times, if not of all his- 

tory. The campaign against Austria, planned by the Di- 
rectory, included two parallel and aggressive movements against that 

152 




A Director in Officiai. Costume 
Redrawn after a sketch by Le Dru. 



THE FAMILY OF BONAPARTE 



153 



country — an attack through southern Germany, down the valley of the 
Danube, ending, it was hoped, at Vienna. This was the campaign north 
of the Alps. South of the Alps, in northern Italy, France had enemies in 
Piedmont or Sardinia and again in Austria, which had possession of the 

central and rich part of the Po val- 
ley, namely, Lombardy, with Milan 
as the capital. 

The campaign in Germany was 
confided to Jourdan and Moreau; 
that in Italy to General Bonaparte, 
who made of it a stepping-stone to 
fame and power incomparable. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born 
at Ajaccio in Corsica in 1769, a 
short time after the 
island had been sold 
by Genoa to France. 
The family was of 
Italian origin but had 
for two centuries and 
a half been resident 
in the island. His father, Charles 
Bonaparte, was of the nobility but 
was poor, indolent, pleasure-loving, 
a lawyer by profession. His mother, Laetitia Ramolino, was a woman 
of great beauty, of remarkable will, of extraordinary energy. Poorly 
educated, this "mother of kings" was never able to speak the French 
language without ridiculous mistakes. She had thirteen children, eight 
of whom lived to grow up, five boys and three girls. The father died 
when the youngest, Jerome, was only three months old. Napoleon, the 
second son, was educated in French military schools at Napoleon 
Brienne and Paris, as a sort of charity scholar. He was 
very unhappy, surrounded as he was by boys who looked 
down upon him because he was poor while they were rich, 
because his father was unimportant while theirs belonged to the noblest 
families in France, because he spoke French like the foreigner he was, 
Italian being his native tongue. In fact he was tormented in all the ways 
of which schoolboys are past masters. He became sullen, taciturn, Hved 




Napoleon 
Bonaparte, 
an Italian 
by descent, 
a Corsican 
by birth, a 
Frenchman 
by nation- 
ality 



Charles Bonaparte 

After the painting by Belliard, engraved by 

Read. 



educated at 
military 
schools in 
France 



154 



THE DIRECTORY 



apart by himself, was unpopular with his fellows whom, in turn, he de- 
spised, conscious, as he was, of powers quite equal to any of theirs, of a 
spirit quite as high. His boyish letters home were remarkably serious, 

lucid, intelligent. He was ex- 
cellent in mathematics, and 
was fond of history and geog- 
raphy. At the age of sixteen 
he left the military school and 
became a second lieutenant of 
artillery. One of his teachers 
described him at this time as 
follows: "Reserved and studi- 
ous, he prefers study to amuse- 
ment of any kind and enjoys 
reading the best authors; is 
diligent in the study of the 
abstract sciences, caring little 
for anything else. He is taci- 
turn and loves solitude, is 
capricious, haughty, and exces- 
sively self-centered. He talks 
little but is quick and energetic 
in his replies, prompt and 
incisive in repartee. He has 
great self-esteem, is ambitious, 
with aspirations that will stop at nothing. Is worthy of patronage." 

Young Bonaparte read the intoxicating literature of revolt of the 
eighteenth century, Voltaire, Turgot, particularly Rousseau. "Even 
"When I when I had nothing to do," he said later, "I vaguely 

was a young thought that I had no time to lose." As a young sub- 
lieutenant of ./ o 
artUiery," lieutenant he had a wretchedly small salary. "I have 

no resources here but work," he wrote his mother. "I 
sleep very httle.- I go to bed at ten, I rise at four. I 
have only one meal a day, at three o'clock." He read his- 
tory extensively, regarding it as "the torch of truth, the destroyer of 
Desires to be prejudice." He tried his hand at writing, essays, novels, 
an historian ^^^ particularly a history of Corsica, for at this time his 
great ambition was to be the historian of his native land. He hated 




Laetitia Ramolino, Napoleon's Mother 
From a painting in the Town Hall at Ajaccio. 



later a favor- 
ite phrase 
with 
Napoleon 



BONAPARTE DURING THE REVOLUTION 



155 



France and dreamed of a war of independence for Corsica. He spent 
much time in Corsica, securing long furloughs, which, moreover, he 
overstayed. As a consequence he finally lost his position in the army 







"^' iinTjiiyiii^ri 



The House at Ajaccio in utiich Napoleon was born 
From a drawing by F. Clementson. 

which, though poorly salaried, still gave him a living. He returned to 
Paris in 1792, hoping to regain it, but the disturbed state of affairs was 
not propitious. Without a profession, without resources, he ^ spectator 
was almost penniless. He ate in cheap restaurants. He of the 
pawned his watch — and, as an idle but interested specta- 
tor, he witnessed some of the famous "days" of the Revolution, the 




Revolution 



156 THE DIRECTORY 

invasion of the Tuileries by the mob on the 20th of June, when Louis 
XVI was forced to wear the bonnet rouge, the attack of August 10 when 
he was deposed, the September Massacres. Bonaparte's opinion was 
that the soldiers should have shot a few hundred, then the crowd would 

^ . have run. He was restored to his command in August, 

Renders use- i i • 

fui service to 1792. In 1 793 he distmguished himself by helpmg recover 
the Republic 'j-q^^qj^ fg^ ^^e Republic and in 1795 by defending the Con- 
vention against the insurrection of Vendemiaire, which was a lucky crisis 
for him. 

Having conquered a Parisian mob, he was himself conquered by a 
woman. He fell madly in love with Josephine Beauharnais, a widow six 
years older than himself, whose husband had been guillo- 
ma"ri^s tined a few days before the fall of Robespierre, leaving her 

Josephine pQQj- ^^d with two children. Josephine did not lose her 
heart but she was impressed, indeed half terrified, by the 
vehemence of Napoleon's passion, the intensity of his glance, and she 
yielded to his rapid, impetuous courtship, with a troubled but vivid 
sense that the future had great things in store for him. "Do they" 
(the Directors) "think that I need their protection in order to rise?" 
he had exclaimed to her. "They will be glad enough some day if I grant 
them mine. My sword is at my side and with it I can go far." "This 
preposterous assurance," wrote Josephine, "affects me to such a degree 
that I can beheve everything may be possible to this man, and, with 
his imagination, who can tell what he may be tempted to undertake?" 

Two days before they were married Bonaparte was appointed to 

the command of the Army of Italy. His sword was at his side. He 

Bonaparte uow unsheathed it and made some memorable passes. 

appointed T^RO days after the marriage he left his bride in Paris and 

commander . . 

of the Army started for the front, in a mingled mood of desperation at 

of Italy <^Yi^ separation and of exultation that now his opportunity 

had come. Sending back passionate love-letters from every station, his 

spirit and his senses all on fire, feehng that he was on the very verge of 

achievement, he hastened on to meet the enemy and, as was quickly 

evident, "to tear the very heart out of glory." The wildness of Corsica, 

A true son his native land, was in his blood, the land of fighters, the 

of Corsica \^^^ ^f ^.j^g vendetta, of concentrated passion, of lawless 

energy, of bravery beyond compare, concerning which Rousseau had 

written in happy prescience twenty years before, "I have a presentiment 



BONAPARTE'S OPPORTUNITY 157 

that this little island will some day astonish Europe." That day had 
come. The young eagle it had nourished was now preening for his 
flight, prepared to astonish the universe. 

The difliculties that confronted Bonaparte were numerous and not- 
able. One was his youth and another was that he was unknown. The 
Army of Italy had been in the field three years. Its generals ^^^ ^^_ 
did not know their new commander. Some of them were Acuities in 
older than he and had already made names for themselves. * ^ ^^^ 
They resented this appointment of a junior, a man whose chief exploit 
had been a street fight in Paris. Nevertheless when this slender, round- 
shouldered, small, and sickly-looking young man appeared they saw in- 
stantly that they had a master. He was imperious, laconic, 

J -.1 .1 (IT. „■, ■^ r , Bonaparte's 

reserved with them. It was necessary, he said afterward, attitude 

"in order to command men so much older than myself." toward his 
He was only five feet two inches tall but, said Massena, 
"when he put on his general's hat he seemed to have grown two feet. 
He questioned us on the position of our divisions, on the spirit and 
effective force of each corps, prescribed the course we were to follow, 
announced that he would hold an inspection on the morrow, and on 
the day following attack the enemy." Augereau, a vulgar and famous 
old soldier, full of strange oaths and proud of his tall figure, was 
abusive, derisive, mutinous. He was admitted to the General's pres- 
ence and passed an uneasy moment. "He frightened me," said 
Augereau, "his first glance crushed me. I cannot understand it." 

It did not take these officers long to see that the young general meant 
business and that he knew very thoroughly the art of war. His speech 
was rapid, brief, incisive. He gave his orders succinctly and clearly and 
he let it be known that obedience was the order of the day. The cold 
reception quickly became enthusiastic cooperation. 

Bonaparte won ascendency over the soldiers with the same lightning 
rapidity. They had been long inactive, idling through meaningless 
manoeuvres. He announced immediate action. The re- g ^^ . 
sponse was instantaneous. He inspired confidence and he and the 
inspired enthusiasm. He took an army that was discour- ^*''°'®''^ 
aged, that was in rags, even the ofiicers being almost without shoes, an 
army on half rations. He issued a bulletin which imparted to them his 
own exaltation, his belief that the limits of the possible could easily be 
transcended, that it was all a matter of will. He got into their blood and 



158 



THE DIRECTORY 



they tingled with impatience and with hope. "There was so much of 

the future in him," is the way Marmont described the impression. 

"Soldiers," so ran this bulletin, "soldiers, you are ill-fed and almost 

naked; the government owes you much, it can give you 
Bonaparte's ' <^ . , ., . . 

bulletins to nothing. Your patience, the courage which you exhibit in 
the army ^-^^ midst of these crags, are worthy of ah admiration; but 

they bring you no atom of glory; not a ray is reflected upon you. I will 
conduct you into the most fertile plains in the world. Rich provinces, 
great cities will be in your power; there you will find honor, glory, and 
wealth. Soldiers of Italy, can it be that you will be lacking in courage 
or perseverance?" 

Ardent images of a very mundane and material kind rose up before 
him and he saw to it that his soldiers shared them. By portraying very 
earthly visions of felicity Mahomet, centuries before, had stirred the 
Oriental zeal of his followers to marvelous effort and achievement. 
Bonaparte took suggestions from Mahomet on more than one occasion 
in his life. 

Bonaparte's first Italian campaign has remained in the eyes of mili- 
tary men ever since a masterpiece, a classic example of the art of war.. 
Bonaparte's ^^ lasted a year, from April, 1796 to April, 1797. It may 
first Italian be summarized in the words, "He came, he saw, he con- 
campaign quered." He confronted an allied Sardinian and Austrian 
army, and his forces were much inferior in number. His policy was 
therefore to see that his enemies did not unite, and then to beat each in 
turn. His enemies combined had 70,000 men. He had about half that 
number. Shpping in between the Austrians and Sardinians he defeated 
the former, notably at Dego, and drove them eastward. Then he turned 
westward against the Sardinians, defeated them at Mondovi and opened 
the way to Turin, their capital. The Sardinians sued for peace and 
Bonaparte agreed that France should have the provinces of Savoy 
forces the and Nice. One enemy had thus been eliminated by the 
to sue for "^^S heroes," now turned into "winged victories." Bona- 
peace (May, parte summarized these achievements in a bulletin to his 
men, which set them vibrating. "Soldiers," he said, "in 
fifteen days you have won six victories, taken twenty-one stands of colors, 
fifty-five pieces of cannon, and several fortresses, and conquered the 
richest part of Piedmont. You have taken 1,500 prisoners and killed 
or wounded 10,000 men. . . . But, soldiers, you have done nothing, 



BONAPARTE IN ITALY 159 

since there remains something for you to do. You have still battles to 

fight, towns to take, rivers to cross." 

Bonaparte now turned his entire attention to the Austrians, who were 

in control of Lombardy. Rushing down the southern bank of the Po, he 

crossed it at Piacenza. Beaulieu, the Austrian commander, xv,^ r.„^ 

' ' ine cam- 

withdrew beyond the Adda River. There was no way to paign against 

get at him but to cross the river by the bridge of Lodi, ^ "^ "^"^ 

a bridge 350 feet long and swept on the other side by cannon. To 

cross it in the face of a raking fire was necessary but was well-nigh 

impossible. Bonaparte ordered his grenadiers forward. The bridge 

Halfway over they were mowed down by the Austrian fire °^ ^°'^^ 

and began to recoil. Bonaparte and other generals rushed to the head 

of the columns, risked their lives, inspired their men, and the result was 

that they got across in the very teeth of the murderous fire and seized 

the Austrian batteries. "Of all the actions in which the soldiers under 

my command have been engaged," reported Bonaparte to the Directory, 

"none has equaled -the tremendous passage of the bridge of Lodi." 

From that day Bonaparte was the idol of his soldiers. He had shown 
reckless courage, contempt of death. Thenceforth they called him affec- 
tionately "The Little Corporal." The Austrians retreated to the farther 
side of the Mincio and to the mighty fortress of Mantua. On May 16 
Bonaparte made a triumphal entry into Milan. He sent The struggle 
a force to begin the siege of Mantua. That was the key to ^°^ Mantua 
the situation. He could not advance into the Alps and against Vienna 
until he had taken it. On the other hand if Austria lost Mantua, she 
would lose her hold upon Italy. 

Four times during the next eight months, from June, 1796 to Jan- 
uary, 1797, Austria sent down armies from the Alps in the attempt to 
relieve the beleaguered fortress. Each time they were defeated by the 
prodigious activity, the precision of aim, of the French general, who 
continued his policy of attacking his enemy piecemeal, before their divi- 
sions could unite. By this policy his inferior forces, for his numbers were 
inferior to the total of the opposed army, were always as a Bonanarte's 
matter of fact so applied as to be superior to the enemy on methods of 
the battlefield, for he attacked when the enemy was divided. ^^ ^^^ 
It was youth against age, Bonaparte being twenty-seven, Wurmser and 
the other Austrian generals almost seventy. It was new methods against 
old, origin9,lity against the spirit of routine. The Austrians came down 



i6o 



THE DIRECTORY 




o ^ 



ARCOLA AND RIVOLI i6i 

irom the Alpine passes in two divisions. Here was Bonaparte's chance, 
and wonderfully did he use it. In war, said Moreau to him two years 
later, "the greater number always beat the lesser." "You are right," 
replied Bonaparte. " Whenever, with smaller forces, I was in the pres- 
ence of a great army, arranging mine rapidly, I fell like a thunderbolt 
upon one of its wings, tumbled it over, profited by the disorder which 
always ensued to attack the enemy elsewhere, always wdth my entire 
force. Thus I defeated him in detail and victory was always the triumph 
of the larger number over the smaller." All this was accomplished only 
by forced marches. "It is our legs that win his battles," said his soldiers. 
He shot his troops back and forth hke a shuttle. By the rapidity of his 
movements he made up for his numerical weakness. Of course this suc- 
cess was rendered possible by the mistake of his opponents in dividing 
their forces when they should have kept them united. 

Even thus, with his own ability and the mistakes of his enemies co- 
operating, the contest was severe, the outcome at times trembled in the 

balance. Thus at Areola, the battle raged for three days, 
* . -r ,• 1 , , T 1 r The battle 

Agam, as at Lodi, success depended upon the control of a of Areola 

bridge. Only a few miles separated the two Austrian divi- (November 
sions. If the Austrians could hold the bridge, then their 
junction would probably be completed. Bonaparte seized a flag and 
rushed upon the bridge, accompanied by his staff. The Austrians leveled 
a murderous fire at them. The columns fell back, several officers having 
been shot down. They refused to desert their general but dragged him 
with them by his arms and clothes. He fell into a morass and began to 
sink. "Forward to save the General! " was the cry and immediately the 
French fury broke loose, they drove back the Austrians and rescued tljeir 
hero. He had, however, not repeated the exploit of Lodi. He had not 
crossed the bridge. But the next day his army was victorious and the 
Austrians retreated once more. The three days' battle was over (Novem- 
ber 15-17, 1796). 

Two months later a new Austrian army came down from the Alps 
for the rehef of Mantua and another desperate battle occurred, at RivoU. 
On January 13-14, 1797, Bonaparte inflicted a crushing de- 
feat upon the Austrians, routed them, and sent them spin- of Rivoii 

ning back into the Alps again. Two weeks later Mantua (January 13- 

14 1797) 
surrendered. Bonaparte now marched up into the Alps, 

constantly outgeneraling his brilliant new opponent, the young Arch- 



i62 THE DIRECTORY 

duke Charles, forcing him steadily back. When on April 7 he reached 

the little town of Leoben, about 100 miles from Vienna, 

forces Aus- Austria sued for peace. A memorable and crowded year 

tria to make ^ ^^^j. ^^g ^j^^g brought to a brilliant close. In its twelve 

peace. Truce " 

of Leoben, months' march across northern Italy the French had fought 

AprU, 1797 eighteen big battles, and sixty-five smaller ones. "You 
have, besides that," said Bonaparte in a bulletin to the army, "sent 
30,000,000 francs from the public treasury to Paris. You have en- 
riched the Museum of Paris with 300 masterpieces of ancient and mod- 
ern Italy, which it has taken thirty ages to produce. You have 
conquered the most beautiful country of Europe. The French colors 
float for the first time upon the borders of the Adriatic." In another 
proclamation he told them they were forever covered with glory, that 
when they had completed their task and returned to their homes their 
fellow-citizens, when pointing to them, would say, " He was of the Army 
of Italy." 

Thus rose his star to full meridian splendor. No wonder he believed 
in it. 

All through this Italian campaign Bonaparte acted as if he were the 

head of the state, not its servant. He sometimes followed the advice of 

the Directors, more often he ignored it, frequently he acted 
Bonaparte's . , ^ ^ . ^r,- t i i 1 • 

attitude m defiance of it. Mihtary matters did not alone occupy his 

toward the attention. He tried his hand at political manipulation, 

Directory 1 • 1 1 1 j 

With the same confidence and the same success which he had 

shown on the field of battle. He became a creator and a destroyer of 

states. Italy was not at that time a united country but was a collection 

Treatment of small independent states. None of these escaped the 

of Genoa transforming touch of the young conquerer. He changed 

the old aristocratic Republic of Genoa into the Ligurian Republic, giving 

it a constitution similar to that of France. He forced doubtful princes, 

like the Dukes of Parma and Modena, to submission and heavy payments. 

He forced the Pope to a similar humihation, taking some of his states,' 

sparing most of them, and levying heavy exactions. 

Bonaparte His most notorious act, next to the conquest of the suc- 

attacks and cessive Austrian armies, was the overthrow, on a fhmsy 

conquers 

Venice, pretext and with diabolic guile, of the famous old Republic 

("97) of Venice. 



BONAPARTE CONQUERS VENICE 



163 




Napoleon at Arcola 
After the painting by Gros. 



1 64 THE DIRECTORY 

"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee; 
And was the safeguard of the West: the worth 
Of Venice did not fall below her birth, 
Venice, the Eldest Child of Liberty." 

Such was the thought that came to the poet Wordsworth as he con- 
templated this outrage, resembhng in abysmal immorality the contem- 
porary partition of Poland at the hands of the monarchs of Prussia, 
Austria, and Russia. At least this clear, bright, pagan republican general 
could have claimed, had he cared to, that he was no worse than the kings 
of the eighteenth century who asserted that their rule was ordained of 
God. Bonaparte was no worse; he was also no better; he was, more- 
over, far more able. He conquered Venice, one of the oldest and proudest 
states in Europe, and held it as a pawn in the game of diplomacy, to 
which he turned with eagerness and talent, now that the war was over. 

Austria had agreed in April, 1797, to the preliminary peace of Leo- 
ben. The following summer was devoted to the making of the final 
peace, that of Campo Formio, concluded October 17, 1797. During these 
months Bonaparte lived in state in the splendid villa of Montebello, 
near Milan, basking in the dazzling sunshine of his sudden and amazing 
fortune. There he kept a veritable court, receiving ambassadors, talking 

intimately with artists and men of letters, surrounded by 
General ^ . ' -^ 

Bonaparte young officers, who had caught the swift contagion of ^ his 

and his personality and who were advancing with his advance to 

prosperity and renown. There, too, at Montebello, were 

Josephine and the brothers and the sisters of the young victor and also 

his mother, who kept a level head in prosperity as she had in adversity 

— all irradiated with the new glamour of their changed position in life. 

The young man who a few years before had pawned his watch and had 

eaten six-cent dinners in cheap Parisian restaurants now dined in public 

in the old manner of French kings, allowing the curious to gaze upon 

him. A body-guard of Polish lancers attended whenever he rode forth. 

His conversation dazzled by its ease and richness. It was quoted 

everywhere. Some of it was calculated to arouse concern in high quar- 

Bonaparte's ^^^^- "What I have done so far," he said, *'is nothing. I 

flights of am but at the beginning of the career I am to run. Do you 

imagine that I have triumphed in Italy in order to advance 

the lawyers of the Directory? . . . Let the Directory attempt to deprive 



THE TREx\TY OF CAMPO FORMIO 165 

me of my command and they will see who is the master. The nation 
must have a head who is rendered illustrious by glory." Two years 
later he saw to it that she had such a head. 

The treaty of Campo Formio initiated the process of changing the 
map of Europe which was to be carried on bewilderingly in the years to 
come. Neither France, champion of the new principles of politics, nor 
Austria, champion of the old, differed in their methods. Both bargained 
and traded as best they could and the result was an agree- The division 
ment that contravened the principles of the French Revolu- °^ *^® spoils 
tion, of the rights of peoples to determine their own destinies, the prin- 
ciple of popular sovereignty. For the agreement simply registered the 
arbitrament of the sword, was frankly based on force, and on nothing 
else. French domestic policy had been revolutionized. French foreign 
policy had remained stationary. 

By the Treaty of Campo Formio Austria relinquished her possessions 
in Belgium to France and abandoned to her the left bank of the Rhine, 
agreeing to bring about a congress of the German states to provisions of 
effect this change. Austria also gave up her rights in Lom- the treaty of 
bardy and agreed to recognize the new Cisalpine Republic pg^o 
which Bonaparte created out of Lombardy, the duchies (October, 

17971 

Parma and Modena, and out of parts of the Papal States 

and Venetia. In return for this the city, the islands, and most of the 

mainland of Venice, were handed over to Austria, as were also Dalmatia 

and Istria. Austria became an Adriatic power. The Adriatic ceased 

to be a Venetian lake. 

The French people were enthusiastic over the acquisition of Belgium 

and the left bank of the Rhine. They were disposed, however, to be 

indignant at the treatment of Venice, the rape of a republic The wishes 

by a republic. But they were obliged to take the fly with °* *^® 
1 • 1 ^ ,1 , . . French 

the omtment and to adapt themselves to the situation, people not 

Thus ended the famous Italian campaign, which was the consulted 
stepping-stone by which Napoleon Bonaparte started on his triumphal 
way. 

He had, moreover, not only conquered Italy. He had plundered her. 
One of the features of this campaign had been that it had been based 
upon the principle that it must pay for itself and yield a profit in addi- 
tion, for the French treasury. Bonaparte demanded large contributions 
from the princes whom he conquered. The Duke of Modena had to 



j66 the directory 

pay ten million francs, the Republic of Genoa fifteen, the Pope twenty. 
He levied heavily upon Milan. Not only did he make Italy support his 
army but he sent large sums to the Directory, to meet the ever-threaten- 
ing deficit. 

Not only that, but he shamelessly and systematically robbed her of her 
works of art. This he made a regular feature of his career as conqueror. 
In this and later campaigns, whenever victorious, he had 
fyJtematic^ his agents ransack the galleries and select the pictures, 
robber of art ^hich he then demanded as the prize of war, conduct 
ga enes ^yhich greatly embittered the victims but produced pleas- 

urable feehngs in France. The entry of the first art treasures into Paris 
created great excitement. Enormous cars bearing pictures and statues, 
carefully packed, but labeled on the outside, rolled through the streets 
to the accompaniment of martial music, the waving of flags, and shouts 
of popular approval: "The Transfiguration" by Raphael; "The Christ" 
by Titian; the Apollo Belvedere, the Nine Muses, the Laocoon, the 
Venus de Medici. 

During his career Bonaparte enriched the Museum of the Louvre 
with over a hundred and fifty paintings by Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, 
Titian, and Van Dyck, to mention only a few of the greater names. 
After his fall years later many of these were returned to their former 
owners. Yet many remained. The famous bronze horses of Venice, of 
which the Venetians had robbed Constantinople centuries before, as 
Constantinople had long before that robbed Rome, were transported 
to Paris after the conquest of Venice in 1797, were transported back to 
Venice after the overthrow of Napoleon and were put in place again, 
there to remain for a full 100 years, until the year 191 5, when they were 
removed once more, this time by the Venetians themselves, for purposes 
of safety against the dangers of the Austrian war of that year. 

After this swift revelation of genius in the Italian campaign the lau- 
reled hero returned to Paris, the cynosure of all eyes, the center of 
Bonaparte's boundless curiosity. He knew, however, that the way to 
return to keep curiosity alive is not to satisfy it, for, once satisfied, it 

turns to other objects. Believing that the Parisians, like the 
ancient Athenians, preferred to worship gods that were unknown, he dis- 
creetly kept in the background, affected simplicity of dress and demeanor, 
and won praises for his "modesty," quite ironically misplaced. Modesty 
was not his forte. He was studying his future very carefully, was analyz- 



BONAPARTE'S RETURN TO PARIS 



167 




i68 THE DIRECTORY 

ing the situation very closely. He would have liked to enter the Direc- 
tory. Once one of the five he could have pocketed the other four. But 
he was only twenty-eight and Directors must be at least forty years of 
age. He did not wish or intend to imitate Cincinnatus by returning with 
dignity to the plow. He was resolved to "keep his glory warm." Per- 
ceiving that, as he expressed it, "the pear was not yet ripe," he medi- 
tated, and the result of his meditations was a spectacular adventure. 

After the Peace of Campo Formio only one power remained at war 
with France, namely England. But England was most formidable — 
En land bccause of her wealth, because of her colonies, because of 

still the her navy. She had been the center of the coaUtion, the pay- 

enemy mistress of the other enemies, the constant fomenter of 

trouble, the patron of the Bourbons. "Our Government," said Napoleon 
at this time, "must destroy the English monarchy or it must expect 
itself to be destroyed by these active islanders. Let us concentrate our 
energies on the navy and annihilate England. That done, Europe is at 
our feet." The annihilation of England was to be the most constant sub- 
ject of his thought during his entire career, baffling him at every stage, 
prompting him to gigantic efforts, ending in catastrophic failure eighteen 
years later at Waterloo, and in the forced repinings of St. Helena. 

The Directory now made Bonaparte commander of the army of 
England, and he began his first experiment in the elusive art of destroy- 
Bonaparte ^^§ these "active islanders." Seeing that a direct invasion 
appointed of England was impossible he sought out a vulnerable spot 
of the which should at the same time be accessible, and he hit 

"Army of upon Egypt. Not that Egypt was an English possession, 
°^ ^^ for it was not. It belonged to the Sultan of Turkey. But 

it was on the route to India and Bonaparte, like many of his contem- 
poraries, considered that England drew her strength, not from English 
mines and factories, from EngUsh brains and characters, but from the , 
fabulous wealth of India. Once cut that nerve and the mighty colossus 
would reel and fall. England was not an island ; she was a world-empire. 
As such she stood in the way of all other would-be world-empires, then 
as now. The year 1914 saw no new arguments put forth by her enemies 
in regard to England that were not freely uttered in 1797. Bonaparte 
denounced this "tyrant of the seas" quite in our latter-day style. If 
there must be tyranny it was intolerable that it should be exercised by 
others. He now received the ready sanction of the Directors to his 



BONAPARTE'S EGYPTIAN PLANS 



169 



Bonaparte 
plans the 
conquest of 
Egypt 



plan for the conquest of Egypt. Once conquered, Egypt would serve as 
a basis of operations for an expedition to India which would 
come in time. The Directors were glad to get him so far 
away from Paris, where his popularity was burdensome, 
was, indeed, a constant menace. The plan itself, also, was 
quite in the traditions of the French foreign office. Moreover the potent 
fascination of the Orient for all 
imaginative minds, as offering an 
inviting, mysterious field for vast 
and dazzling action, operated pow^- 
erfully upon Bonaparte. What 
destinies might not be carved out 
of the gorgeous East, with its limit- 
less horizons, its immeasurable, 
unutilized opportunities? The 
Orient had appealed to Alexander 
the Great with irresistible force as 
it now appealed to this imaginative 
young Corsican, every energy of 
whose rich and complex personal- 
ity was now in high flood. "This 
little Europe has not enough to 
offer," he remarked one day to 
his schoolboy friend, Bourrienne. 
"The Orient is the place to go to. 
All great reputations have been 
made there." "I do not know what would have happened to me," he 
said later, "if I had not had the happy idea of going to Egypt." He 
was a child of the Mediterranean and as a boy had drunk in its legends 
and its poetry. As wildly imaginative as he was intensely practical, 
both imagination and cool calculation recommended the adventure. 

Once decided on, preparations were made with promptness and in 
utter secrecy. On May 19, 1798, Bonaparte set sail from Toulon with a 

fleet of 400 slow-moving transports bearing an army of 

o A 1 -ii- r , Preparations 

38,000 men. A brilliant corps of young generals accom- for the 

panied him, Berthier, Murat, DesaLx, Marmont, Lannes, Egyptian 

Kleber, tried and tested in Italy the year before. He also 

took with him a traveling hbrary in which Plutarch's Lives and Xeno- 




WiLLiAM Pitt 
From a portrait by J. Hoppner. 



lyo THE DIRECTORY 

phon's Anabasis and the Koran were a few of the significant contents. 
Fellow-voyagers, also, were over loo distinguished scholars, scientists, 
artists, engineers, for this expedition was to be no mere miUtary prom- 
enade but was designed to widen the bounds of human knowledge by 
an elaborate study of the products and customs, the history and the art 
of that country, famous, yet little known. This, indeed, was destined 
to be the most permanent and valuable result of an expedition which 
laid the broad foundations of modern Egyptology in "The Descrip- 
tion of Eg}T3t," a monumental work which presented to the world in 
sumptuous form the discoveries and investigations of this group of 
learned men. 

The hazards were enormous. Admiral Nelson with a powerful Eng- 
lish fleet was in the INIediterranean. The French managed to escape 
The seizure him. Stopping on the way to seize the important position 
of Malta Qf Malta and to forward the contents of its treasury to the 

Directors, Bonaparte reached his destination at the end of June and dis- 
embarked in safety. The nominal ruler of Egypt was the Sultan of Tur- 
key but the real rulers were the Mamelukes, a sort of feudal military 
caste. They constituted a splendid body of cavalrymen but they were 
no match for the invaders, as they lacked infantry and artillery, and were, 
moreover, far inferior in numbers. 

Seizing Alexandria on July 2 the French army began the march to 
Cairo. The difficulties of the march were great, as no account had been 
The march taken, in the preparations, of the character of the climate 
to Cairo ^j^^ |-]^g country. The soldiers wore the heavy uniforms in 

vogue in Europe. In the march across the blazing sands they experi- 
enced hunger, thirst, heat. Many perished from thirst, serious eye 
troubles were caused by the frightful glare, suicide was not infrequent. 
Finally, however, after nearly three weeks of this agony, the Pyramids 
The battle came in sight, just outside Cairo. There Bonaparte ad- 
of the ministered a smashing defeat to the Mamelukes, encourag- 

yrami s .^^ j^.^ soldiers by one of his thrilling phrases, "Soldiers, 

from the summit of these pyramids forty centuries look down upon 
you." The Battle of the Pyramids, July 21, 1798, gave the French 
control of Cairo. The Mamelukes were dispersed. They had lost 2,000 
men. Bonaparte had lost very few. 

But no sooner had the French conquered the country than they 
became prisoners in it. For, on August i. Nelson had surprised the 



THE BATTLE OF THE NILE 



171 



French fleet as it was lying in the harbor of Abukir Bay, east of Alex- 
andria, and had captured or destroyed it. Only two battle- kelson de- 
ships and a frigate managed to escape. This Battle of stroys the 
the Nile, as it was called, was one of the most decisive ^^^'^ ^®* 
sea fights of this entire period. It was Bonaparte's first taste of British 
sea power. It was not his last. 




Bonaparte received the news of this terrible disaster, which cut him 
off from France and cooped him up in a hot and poor country, with 
superb composure. "Well! we must remain in this land, and come forth 
great, as did the ancients. This is the hour when characters of a superior 
order should show themselves." And later he said that the Enghsh 
"will perhaps compel us to do greater things than we intended." 

He had need of all his resources, material and moral. Hearing that 
the Sultan of Turkey had declared war upon him, he re- jj^^ j^^^^, 
solved, in January, 1799, to invade Syria, one of the Sul- sion of Syria 
tan's provinces, washing to restore or reaffirm the confidence ^ ' 
of his soldiers by fresh victories and thinking, perhaps, of a march on 



172 THE DIRECTORY 

India or on Constantinople, taking "Europe in the rear," as he expressed 
it. If such was his hope, it was destined to disappointment. The crossing 
of the desert from Egypt into Syria was painful in the extreme, marked 
by the horrors of heat and thirst. The soldiers marched amid clouds of 
sand blown against them by a suffocating wind. They however seized 
the forts of Gaza and Jaffa, and destroyed a Turkish army at Mt. Tabor, 
near Nazareth, but were arrested at Acre, which they could not take by 
siege, because it was on the sea coast and was aided by the British fleet, 
but which they partly took by storm, only to be forced finally to with- 
The struggle draw because of terrific losses. For two months the struggle 
for Acre fQj- ^^j-g went on. Plague broke out, ammunition ran short, 

and Bonaparte was again beaten by sea-power. He led his army back 
to Cairo in a memorable march, covering 300 miles in twenty-six days, 
over scorching sands and amidst appalling scenes of disaster and des- 
peration. He had sacrificed 5,000 men, had accomplished nothing, and 
had been checked for the first time in his career. On reaching Cairo he 
had the effrontery to act as if he had been triumphant, and sent out 
lying bulletins, not caring to have the truth known. 

A few weeks later he did win a notable victory, this time at Abukir, 
against a Turkish army that had just disembarked. This he correctly 

„, „ , described when he announced, "It is one of the finest I 

The Battle . ' 

of Abukir have ever witnessed. Of the army landed by the enemy 

i7q<fi^^' ^^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^ escaped." Over 10,000 Turks lost their 

lives in this, the last exploit of Bonaparte in Egypt. For 

now he resolved to return to France, to leave the whole adventure in 

other hands, seeing that it must inevitably fail, and to seek his fortune 

_ _^ in fairer fields. He had heard news from France that made 

Bonaparte 

resolves to him anxious to return. A new coaHtion had been formed 
France *° during his absence, the French had been driven out of 

Italy, France itself was threatened with invasion. The Di- 
rectory was discredited and unpopular because of its incompetence 
and blunders. Bonaparte did not dare inform his soldiers, who had 
endured so much, of his plan. He did not even dare to tell Kleber, to 
whom he intrusted the command of the army by a letter which reached 
the latter too late for him to protest. He set sail secretly on the night 
of August 21, 1799, accompanied by Berthier, Murat, and five other 
officers and by two or three scientists. Kleber was later assassinated 
by a Mohammedan fanatic and the French army was forced to capitu- 



RETURN OF BONAPARTE 173 

late and evacuate Egypt, in August, 1801. That ended the Egyptian 
expedition. 

It was no easy thing to get back from Egypt to France with the Eng- 
Hsh scouring the seas, and the winds against him. Sometimes the Uttle 
sailboat on which Bonaparte had taken passage was beaten The return 
back ten miles a day. Then the wind would shift at night ^^°^ Egypt 
and progress would be made. It took three weeks of hugging the south- 
ern shore of the Mediterranean before the narrows between Africa and 
Sicily were reached. These were guarded by an English battleship. 
But the French slipped through at night, lights out. Reaching Corsica 
they stopped several days, the winds dead against them. It seemed as 
if every one on the island claimed relationship with their fellow-citizen 
who had been rendered "illustrious by glory." Bonaparte saw his native 
land for the last time in his life. Finally he sailed for France, and was 
nearly overhauled by the British, who chased him to almost within 
sight of land. The journey from the coast to Paris was a continuous 
ovation. The crowds were such that frequently the carriages could 
advance but slowly. Evenings there were illuminations everywhere. 
When Paris was reached delirium broke forth. 

He arrived in the nick of time, as was his wont. Finally the pear was 
ripe. The government was in the last stages of unpopularity and dis- 
credit. Incompetent and corrupt, it was also unsuccessful. The Direc- 
tory was in existence for four years, from October, 1795 to November, 
1799. Its career was agitated. The defects of the con- j.^^ unpop- 
stitution, the perplexing circumstances of the times, the uiarity of the 
ambitions and intrigues of individuals seeking personal "^'^ ^'^^ 
advantage and recking little of the state, had strained the institutions of 
the country almost to the breaking point, and had created a widespread 
feeUng of weariness and disgust. Friction had been constant between 
the Directors and the legislature, and on two occasions the former had 
laid violent hands upon the latter, once arresting a group of royalist 
deputies and annulling their election, once doing the same to a group of 
radical republicans. They had thus made sport of the constitution and 
destroyed the .rights of the voters. Their foreign policy, 
after Bonaparte had sailed for Egypt, had been so aggres- tion formed 

sive and blundering that a new coalition had been formed ag^i^st 
. . France 

agamst France, consisting of England, Austria, and Russia, 

which country now abandoned its eastern isolation and entered upon a 



174 THE DIRECTORY 

period of active participation in the affairs of western Europe. The 
coalition was successful, the French were driven out of Germany back 
upon the Rhine, out of Italy, and the invasion of France was, perhaps, 
impending. The domestic policy of the Directors had also resulted in 
fanning once more the embers of religious war in Vendee. 

In these troubled waters Bonaparte began forthwith to fish. He es- 
tablished connections with a group of poHticians who for one reason 
and another considered a revision of the constitution desirable and 
necessary. The leader of the group was Sieyes, a man who plumed 
himself in having a complete knowledge of the art and theory of gov- 
ernment and who now wished to endow France with the perfect institu- 
tions of which he carried the secret in his brain. Sieyes was a man of 
Olympian conceit, of oracular utterances, a coiner of teUing phrases, 
enjoying an immoderate reputation as a constitution-maker. His phrase 
was now that to accomplish the desired change he needed "a sword." 
He would furnish the pen himself. The event was to prove, contrary 
to all proverbs, that the pen is weaker than the sword, at 
Bonaparte least when the latter belongs to a Napoleon Bonaparte, 
and Abbe Bonaparte, who really despised "this cunning priest," as 
he called him, was nevertheless quite willing to use him as 
a stepping-stone. Heaping flatteries upon him he said: "We have no 
government, because we have no constitution; at least not the one we 
need. It is for your genius to give us one." 

The plan these and other conspirators worked out was to force the 
Directors to resign, willy-nilly, thus leaving France without an execu- 
Plotting a tive, a situation that could not possibly be permitted to 
coup d'etat continue; then to get the Council of Elders and the Council 
of the Five Hundred to appoint a committee to revise the constitu- 
tion. Naturally Sieyes and Bonaparte were to be on that committee, 
if all went well. Then let wisdom have her sway. The conspirators 
had two of the Directors on their side and a majority of the Elders, 
and fortunately the President of the Council of Five Hundred was a 
brother of Napoleon, Lucien Bonaparte, a shallow but cool-headed rhet- 
orician, to whom the honors of the critical day were destined to be due. 

Thus was plotted in the dark the coup d'etat of Brumaire which landed 
What is a Napoleon in the saddle, made him ruler of a great state, 
coup d'etat? ^^^ opened a new and prodigious chapter in the history 
of Europe. There is no Enghsh word for coup d'etat, as fortunately the 



BONAPARTE AS CONSPIRATOR 



175 



thing described is alien to the history of EngHsh-speaking peoples. It 
is the seizure of the state, of power, by force and ruse, the overthrow of 
the form of government by violence, by arms. There had been coups 

d'etat before in France. There 
were to be others later, in the 
nineteenth century. But the 
coup d'etat of i8th and 19th Bru- 
maire (November 9 and 10, 1799) 
is the most classical example of 
this device, the most successful, 
the most momentous in its con- 
sequences. 

But how to set the artful 
scheme in motion? There was 
the danger that the -phe risk the 
deputies of the Five conspirators 
Hundred might 
block the way, danger of a popu- 
lar insurrection in Paris, of the 
old familiar kind, if the rumor 
got abroad that the Republic 
was in peril. The conspirators 
must step warily. They did so 
— and they nearly failed — and 
had they failed, their fate would have been that of Robespierre. 

A charge was trumped up, for which no evidence was given, that a 
plot was being concocted against the Republic. Not an instant must 
be lost, if the state was to be saved. The Council of Elders, The work of 
informed of this, and already won over to the conspiracy, ^^ Brumaire 
thereupon voted, upon the iSth of Brumaire, that both Councils should 
meet the following day at St. Cloud, several miles from Paris, and that 
General Bonaparte should take command of the troops for the purpose 
of protecting them. 

The next day, Sunday, the two Councils met in the palace of St. 
Cloud. Delay occurring in arranging the halls for the ex- Bonaparte in 
traordinary meeting, the suspicious legislators had time to the Council 
confer, to concert opposition. The Elders, when their ses- 
sion finally began at two o'clock, demanded details concerning the pre- 




Official Costume of a Member of the 

Council of the Five Hundred 

From a water-color by David. 



1^6 THE DIRECTORY 

tended plot. Bonaparte entered and made a wild and incoherent speech. 
They were "standing on a volcano," he told them. He was no "Caesar " 
or "Cromwell" intent upon destroying the liberties of his country. 




LuciEN Bonaparte 
From the painting by R. Lefevre. 

"General, you no longer know what you are saying," whispered Bour- 
rienne, urging him to leave the chamber, which he immediately did. 

This was a bad beginning; but worse was yet to come. Bonaparte 
went to the Council of Five Hundred, accompanied by four grenadiers. 
Bonaparte He was greeted with a perfect storm of wrath. Cries of 
'" *^^., , "Outlaw him, outlaw him!" "Down with the Dictator, 

Council of . 

the Five down with the tyrant! " rent the air. Pandemonium reigned. 

Hundred jjg received blows, was pushed and jostled, and was finally 

dragged fainting from the hall by the grenadiers, his coat torn, his face 



THE END OF THE DIRECTORY 177 

bleeding. Outside he mounted his horse in the courtyard, before the 
soldiers. 

It was Lucien who saved this badly bungled day. Refusing to 
put the motion to outlaw his brother, he left the chair, made his 
way to the courtyard, mounted a horse and harangued Lucien saves 
the soldiers, telling them that a band of assassins was '^® ^^^ 
terrorizing the assembly, that his life and that of Napoleon were no 
longer safe, and demanding, as President of the Five Hundred, that 
the soldiers enter the hall and clear out the brigands and free the 
Council. The soldiers hesitated. Then Lucien seized Napoleon's sword, 
pointed it at his brother's breast, and swore to kill him if he should ever 
lay violent hands on the Republic. The lie and the melodrama worked. 
The soldiers entered the hall, led by Murat. The legislators escaped 
through the windows. 

That evening groups of Elders and of the Five Hundred who favored 
the conspirators met, voted the abolition of the Directory, ^j^^ j^ij-ec- 
and appointed three Consuls, Sieyes, Ducos, and General tory over- 
Bonaparte, to take their place. They then adjourned for B^maire 
four months, appointing, as their final act, committees to November 

10 1799) 

cooperate with the Consuls in the preparation of a new ' 
constitution. 

The three Consuls promised "fidelity to the Republic, one and in- 
divisible, to hberty, equality, and the representative system of govern- 
ment." At sbc o'clock on Monday morning every one went Establish- 
back to Paris. The grenadiers returned to their garrison ment of the 
singing revolutionary songs and thinking most sincerely 
that they had saved the Republic and the Revolution. No outbreak oc- 
curred in Paris. The coup (Vetat was popular. Government bonds rose 
rapidly, nearly doubling in a week. 

Such was the Little Corporal's rise to civil power. It was fortunate, 
as we have seen, that not all the ability of his remarkable family was 
monopolized by himself. Lucien had his particular share, a distinct 
advantage to his kith and kin. 

REFERENCES 

Early Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: Fisher, Napoleon (Home University Li- 
brary), pp. 7-28; Johnston, R. M., Napoleon, pp. 1-25; Foumier, Napoleon I, Chaps. 
I and II; Rose, J. H., Life of Napoleon I, Chaps. I-IV; Sloane, Napoleon Bonaparte, 



178 THE DIRECTORY 

Vol. I, Chaps III and V; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, 
Vol. I, pp. 309-312. 

Bonapaste's First Italian Campaign: Fisher, pp. 28-56; Johnston, pp. 27-47; 
Fournier, pp. 72-110; Rose, Vol. I, Chaps. V-VII; Sloane, Chaps. XXV-XXVI; 
Tarbell, Ida M., Napoleon's Addresses, Selections from the Proclamations, Speeches, 
and Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

The Egyptian Expedition: Fisher, pp. 56-72; Fournier, Chap. VI; Rose, Vol. 
I, Chaps. VIII and IX; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII, Chap. XIX. 

The Coup d'Etat of Brumaire: Johnston, pp. 59-79; Fournier, Chap. VII; 
Rose, Vol. I, Chap. X; Sloane, Vol. II, Chaps. X and XI; Fyffe, History of Modern 
Europe, pp. 135-144. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE CONSULATE 



Thus the famous young warrior had clutched at power and was not 
soon to let it slip. It had been a narrow escape. Fate had trembled dan- 
gerously in, the balance on that gray November Sunday afternoon, but 
the gambler had won. His thin, sallow face, his sharp, ^j^^ ^^^^ 
metallic voice, his abrupt, imperious gesture, his glance that and pattern 
cowed and terrified, his long disordered hair, his delicate ° ^ ™^° 
hands, became a part of the history of the times, manifesting the 
intensely vivid impression 
which he had made upon 
his age and was to deepen. 
He was to etch the im- 
press of his amazing per- 
sonality with deep, precise, 
bold strokes upon the in- 
stitutions and the life of 
France. 

He was, in reality, a 
flinty young despot with 
a pronounced taste for 
military glory. "I love 
power," he said later, "as 
a musician loves his violin. 
I love it as an artist." He 
was now in a position to 
indulge his taste. 

Pending a wider and a 
higher flight, there were two tasks that called for the immediate atten- 
tion of the three Consuls, who now took the place formerly occupied 
by the five Directors. A new constitution must be made, and the war 
against the coahtion must be carried on. 

179 




Bonaparte, First Consul 
From an engraving by Momal, after Isabey. 



i8o 



THE CONSULATE 



The Constitution of the Year VIII (1799), the fourth since the begin- 
ning of the Revolution, hastily composed and put into force a month 
The making after the coup d'etat, was in its essentials the work of Bona- 
of the con- parte and was designed to place supreme power in his 
stitution of --ni- u j 

the Year hands. Thishad 

Viu not been at all 

the purpose of Sieyes or of 
the committees appointed to 
draft the document. But 
Sieyes' plan, which had not 
been carefully worked out but 
was confused and uncertain 
in many particulars, encoun- 
tered the abrupt disdain of 
Bonaparte. There was to be 
a Grand Elector with a palace 
at Versailles and an income of 
sLx million francs a year. This 
was the place evidently in- 
tended for Bonaparte, who 
immediately killed it with the 
statement that he had no de- 
sire to be merely "a fatted 
pig." Impatient with this 
scheme and with others sug- 
gested by the committees, 

Bonaparte practically dictated the constitution, using, to 
be sure, such of the suggestions made by the others as 
seemed to him good or harmless. The result was the or- 
ganization of that phase of the history of the Republic which is called 
the Consulate and which lasted from 1799 to 1804. 

The executive power was vested in three Consuls who were to be 
elected for ten years and to be reeligible. They were to be elected by 
Bonaparte ^he Senate but, to get the system started, the constitution 
First indicated who they should be — Bonaparte, First Consul; 

Cambaceres, the second, and Lebrun, the third. Practi- 
cally all the powers were to be in the hands of the First Consul, the ap- 
pointment of ministers, ambassadors, ofl&cers of the army and navy, 




Josephine 
After a drawing by Isabey. 



Bonaparte 
the consti- 
tution-maker 



THE CONSTITUTION OF 1799 i8i 

and numberless civil officials, including judges, the right to make war 
and peace, and treaties, subject to the sanction of the legislature. 

The First Consul was also to have the initiative in all legislation. Bills 
were to be prepared by a Council of State, were then to be submitted to a 
body called the Tribunate, which was to have the right to discuss them 
but not to vote them. Then they were to go to the Legisla- The legisla- 
tive Body which was to have the power to vote them, but not ^^® power 
discuss them. Moreover this ''assembly of 300 mutes" must discharge its 
single function of voting in secret. There w^as also to be a fourth body, 
higher than the others — the Senate, which was to be the The 
guardian of the constitution and was also to be an electing Senate 
body, choosing the Consuls, the members of the Tribunate and the Legis- 
lative Body from certain lists, prepared in a cumbersome and . elaborate 
way, and pretending to safeguard the right of the voters, for the suffrage 
was declared by the constitution to be universal. No time need be spent 
on this aspect of the constitution, for it was a sham and a deception. 

All this elaborate machinery was designed to keep up the fiction of 
the sovereignty of the people, the great assertion of the Revolution. 
The Republic continued to exist. The people were voters, ^j^^ fiction 
They had their various assemblies, thus ingeniously se- of popular 
lected. Practically, however, and this is the matter that government 
most concerns us, popular sovereignty was gone, Bonaparte was sover- 
eign. He had more extensive executive powers than Louis XVI had had 
under the Constitution of 1791. He really had the legislative power 
also. No bill could be discussed or voted that had not povjrers of 
been first prepared by his orders. Once voted it could not the First 
go into force until he promulgated it. France was still a °^^ 
republic in name; practically, however, it was a monarchy, scarcely 
veiled at that. Bonaparte's position was quite as attractive as that of 
any monarch by divine right, except for the fact that he was to hold it 
for a term of ten years only and had no power to bequeath it to an heir. 
He was to remedy these details later. 

Having given France a constitution, he secured the enactment of a 

law which placed all the local government in his hands. Bonaparte 

There was to be a prefect at the head of each department, establishes a 

^ centralized 

a sub pr eject tor each arrondissement, a mayor for every town admmistra- 

or commune. The citizens lost the power to manage their *^^® system 

own local affairs, and thus their training in self-government came to an 



i82 THE CONSULATE 

end. Government, national and local, was centralized in Paris, more 
effectively, even, than in the good old days of the Bourbons and their 
intendants. 

Having set his house in order, having gained a firm grip on the reins 
of power, Bonaparte now turned his attention to the foreign enemies of 

. . France. The coalition consisted of England, Austria, and 
War against . 

the second Russia. England was difficult to get at. The Russians 

coaUtion ^^^^^ dissatisfied with their allies and were withdrawing 

from cooperation. There remained Austria, the enemy Bonaparte had 
met before. 

One Austrian army was on the Rhine and Bonaparte sent Moreau 
to attack it. Another was in northern Italy and he went in person to 
attend to that. While he had been in Egypt the Austrians 
se°c°nd^ it^af- had won back northern Italy. Melas, their general, had 
ian cam- driven Massena into Genoa where the latter hung on like 

^^^ grim death, with rations that would soon be exhausted. 

Bonaparte's plan was to get in between the Austrians and their own 
country, to attack them in the rear, thus to force them to withdraw 
from the siege of Genoa, in order to keep open their line of communica- 
tion. In the pursuit of this object he accomphshed one of his most 

famous exploits, the crossing of the Great Saint Bernard 
The cross- ^ , » , . , r i i 

ing of the Pass over the Alps, with an army of 40,000, through snow 

^^°* , _ and ice, dragging their cannon in troughs made out of 
Bernard Pass j bb b o 

hollowed logs. It was a matter of a week. Once in Italy 

he sought out the Austrians and met them unexpectedly at Marengo 
(June 14, 1800). The battle came near being a defeat, owing to the 
fact that Bonaparte blundered badly, having divided his forces, and 
that Desaix's division was miles away. The battle began at dawn and 
went disastrously for the French. At one o'clock the Austrian com- 
mander rode back to his headquarters, believing that he had won and 
that the remaining work could be left to his subordinates. The French 
were pushed back and their retreat threatened to become a stampede. 
The day was saved by the appearance of Desaix's division on the scene, 
at about five o'clock. The battle was resumed with fury, Desaix himself 
was killed, but the soldiers avenged his glorious death by a glorious vic- 
tory. By seven o'clock the day of strange vicissitudes was over. The 
Austrians signed an armistice abandoning to the French all northern 
Italy as far as the Mincio. 



THE PEACE OF AMIENS 183 

Six months later Moreau won a decisive victory over the Aus- 
trians in Germany at HohenUnden (December 3, i8oo)j Moreau 
thus opening the road to Vienna. Austria was now com- ^ustrians at 
pelled to sue for peace. The Treaty of Luneville (Feb- Hohen- 
ruary 9, 1801) was in the main a repetition of the Treaty cember 3^' 
of Campo Formio. I8OO) 

As had been the case after Campo Formio, so now, after the break-up 
of this second coahtion, France remained at war with only one nation, 
England. These two nations had been at war continuously for eight 
years. England had defeated the French navy and had conquered 
many of the colonies of France and of the allies or dependencies of France, 
that is, of Holland and Spain. She had just compelled the French in 
Egypt, the army left there by Bonaparte, to agree to evacuate that 
country. But her debt had grown enormously and there was widespread 
popular dislike of the war. A change in the ministry occurred, removing 
the great war leader, William Pitt. England agreed to discuss the ques- 
tion of peace. The discussion went on for five months 

. The Peace 

and ended in the Peace of Amiens (March, 1S02). England of Amiens 

recognized the existence of the French RepubUc. She re- ^'^^ ^°s- 

. land 

stored all the French colonies and some of the Dutch and 

Spanish, retaining only Ceylon and Trinidad. She promised to evacu- 
ate Malta and Egypt, which the French had seized in 1798 and which she 
had taken from them. Nothing was said of the French conquest of Bel- 
gium and the left bank of the Rhine. This was virtual acquiescence 
in the new boundaries of France, which far exceeded those of the ancient 
monarchy. 

Thus Europe was at peace for the first time in ten years. Great was 
the enthusiasm in both France and England. The peace, however, 
was most unstable. It lasted just one year. 

Napoleon said on one occasion, "I am the Revolution." On 
another he said that he had "destroyed the Revolu- Napoleon 

tion." There was much error and some truth in both and the 

,1 , , , Revolution 

these statements. 

The Consulate, and the Empire which succeeded the Consulate, 
preserved much of the work of the Revolution and aboHshed much, in 
conformity with the ideas and also the personal interests of the new 
ruler. Bonaparte had very definite opinions concerning the Revolu- 
tion, concerning the French people, and concerning his own ambitions. 



1 84 



THE CONSULATE 



These opinions constituted the most important single factor in the 
life of France after 1799. Bonaparte sympathized with, or at least 
tolerated, one of the ideas of the Revolution, Equahty. He detested 





m%' 






%^ 




^^ 


M 


^^v 


..jiiiw"'- 


■^WM^ 



Josephine at Malmaison 
From the painting by Prudhon. 

the other leading idea. Liberty. In his youth he had fallen under the 
-inagnetic spell of Rousseau. But that had passed and thenceforth he 
dismissed Rousseau summarily as a "madman." He accepted the prin- 
ciple of equality because it alone made possible his own career and 
because he perceived the hold it had upon the minds of the people. He 
had no desire to restore the Bourbons and the feudal system, the 



BONAPARTE'S POLITICAL OPINIONS 185 

incarnation of the principle of inequality and privilege. He stood right 
athwart the road to yesterday in this respect. It vvas he Napoleon 
and his system that kept the Bourbons exiles from France and the Old 
fifteen years longer, so long indeed that when they did ^sune 
finally return it was largely without their baggage of outworn ideas. 
Bonaparte thus prevented the restoration of the Old Regime. That was 
done for, for good and all. Privilege, abolished in 1789, remained abol- 
ished. The clergy, nobility, and third estate had been swept away. 
There remained only a vast mass of French citizens subject to the same 
laws, paying the same taxes, enjoying equal chances in life, as far as the 
state was concerned. The state showed no partiality, had no favorites. 
All shared in bearing the nation's burdens in proportion to their ability. 
And no class levied taxes upon another — tithes and feudal dues were 
not restored. No class could exercise a monopoly of any craft or trade 
— the guilds with all their restrictions remained abolished. Moreover, 
all now had an equal chance at pubhc emplo^nnent in the state or in 
the army. 

Bonaparte summed this policy up in the phrase "careers open to 
talent." This idea was not original with him, it was contained in the 
Declaration of the Rights of Man. But he held it. Under him there 
were no artificial barriers, any one might rise as high as his ability, his 
industry, his service justified, always on condition of his loyalty to the 
sovereign. Every avenue was kept open to ambition and energy. Napo- 
leon's marshals, the men who attained the highest positions in his armies, 
were humbly born — Massena was the son of a saloon-keeper, Augereau 
of a mason, Ney of a cooper, and Murat of a country inn-keeper. None 
of these men could have possibly become a marshal under the Old 
Regime, nor could Bonaparte himself possibly ever have risen to a 
higher rank than that of colonel and then only when well along in life. 
Bonaparte did not think that all men are equal in natural gifts or in 
social position, but he maintained equality before the law, that priceless 
acquisition of the Revolution. 

He did not believe in liberty nor did he believe that, for that matter, 

the French believed in it. His career was one long denial „ 

1 1-7 r Napoleon the 

or negation of it. Neither hberty of speech, nor liberty of enemy of 

the press, neither intellectual nor political liberty received ^^^^^ 1^ 

1-1 1 • r • • every form 

anything from him but blows and infringements. In this 

respect his rule meant reaction to the spirit and the practice of the 



i86 THE CONSULATE 

Old Regime. It is quite true that the Convention and the Directory 
had also trampled ruthlessly upon this principle but it is also quite true 
that neither he nor they could successfully defy what is plainly a domi- 
nant preoccupation, a deep-seated longing of the modern world. For 
the last hundred years the ground has been cumbered with those who 
thought they could silence this passion for freedom, and who found out, 
to their cost and the cost of others, that their efforts to imprison the 
human spirit were unavailing. There are still, after all these instructive 
hundred years, rulers who share that opinion and act upon it. They have 
been able to preserve themselves and their methods of government in 
certain countries. But their day of reckoning, it may safely be prophe- 
sied, is coming, as it came for Napoleon himself. They fight for a losing 
cause, as the history of the modern world shows. 

The activities of Bonaparte as First Consul, after Marengo and dur- 
ing the brief interval of peace, were unremitting and far-reaching. It 
Bonaparte was then that he gave his full measure as a civil ruler. He 
as ruler -^^g^g concerned with binding up the wounds or open sores c>f 

the nation, with determining the precise form of the national institutions, 
with fashioning the mould through which the national life was to go 
pulsing for a long future, with consolidating the foundations of his power. 
A brief examination of this phase of his activity is essential to a knowl- 
edge of the later history of France, and to our appreciation of his own 
matchless and varied ability, of the power of sheer intellect and will 
appUed to the problems of a society in flux. 

First, the party passions which had rioted for ten years must be 
quieted. Bonaparte's policy toward the factions was conciliation, 
His policy coupled with stern and even savage repression of such ele- 
of concilia- ments as refused to comply with this primary requirement. 
There was room enough in France for all, but on one con- 
dition, that all accept the present rulers and acquiesce in the existing 
institutions and laws of the land. Offices would be open freely to former 
royalists, Jacobins, Girondists, on equal terms, no questions asked save 
that of loyalty. As a matter of fact Bonaparte exercised his vast ap- 
Liberal pointing power in this sense for the purpose of effacing all 

4nd*°4s'^Ind distinctions, all unhappy reminders of a troubled past. The 
non-juring laws against the emigres and the recalcitrant priests were 
pnests relaxed. Of over 100,000 emigrants, all but about 1,000 

irreconcilables received, by successive decrees, the legal right to leturn 



BONAPARTE'S RELIGIOUS POLICY 187 

and to recover their estates, if these had not been already sold. Only 
those who placed their devotion to the House of Bourbon above all other 
considerations found the door resolutely closed. 

Bonaparte soon perceived that the strength of the Bourbon cause lay 
not in the merits or talents of the royal family itself or its aristocratic sup- 
porters, but in its close identification with the authorities of the Roman 
Cathohc Church. Through all the angry religious warfare of the Revo- 
lution the mass of the people had remained faithful to the priests and 
the priests were subject to the bishops. The bishops had refused to 
accept the various laws of the Revolution concerning them and had as a 
consequence been driven from the country. They were living mostly in 
England and in Germany, taking their cue from the Pope, who recognized 
Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, as the legitimate ruler of France. 

Thus the religious dissension was fused with political opposition — 

royalists and bishops were in the same galley. Bonaparte determined 

to sever this connection, thus leaving the extreme royalists 

. ■' Bonaparte 

high and dry, a staff of officers without an army. No resolved to 

sooner had he returned from Marengo than he took meas- undermine 

the royalists 
ures to show the Catholics that they had nothing to fear 

from him, that they could enjoy their religion undisturbed if they did 
not use their liberty, under cover of religion, to plot against him and 
against the Revolutionary settlement. He was in all this not actuated 
by any religious sentiment himself, but by a purely political sentiment 
— he was himself as he said, "Mohammedan in Egypt, Catholic in 
France," not because he considered that either w^as in the exclusive or 
authentic possession of the truth, but because he was a man of sense 
who saw the futility of trying to dragoon by force men who were relig- 
ious into any other camp than the one to which they naturally belonged. 
Bonaparte also saw that rehgion was an instrument which he might 
much better have on his side than allow to be on the side of his enemies. 
He looked on religion as a force in politics, nothing else. Bonaparte 
Purely poUtical, not spiritual, considerations determined considered 
his policy in now concluding with the Pope the famous merely as a 
treaty or Concordat, which reversed much of the work of political force 
the Revolutionary assemblies, and determined the relations of church 
and state in France for the whole nineteenth century. This important 
piece of legislation of the year 1802 lasted 103 years, being abrogated 
only under the present republic, in 1905. 



i88 THE CONSULATE 

Bonaparte's thought was that by restoring the Roman Catholic 
Church to something hke its former primacy he would weaken the royal- 
Bonaparte ists. The people must have a religion, he said, but the reli- 
determined gjQj^ must be in the hands of the government. Many of 
support of his adherents did not agree at all with him in this attitude, 
the Church They thought it far wiser to keep church and state divorced 
as they had been by the latest legislation of the Revolution. Bonaparte 
discussed the matter with the famous philosopher Volney, whom he had 
Republican ^^^^ appointed a senator, saying to him, "France desires a 
opposition to religion." Volney replied that France also desired the 
IS pan Bourbons. At this Bonaparte assaulted the philosopher 

and gave him such a kick that lie fell and lost consciousness. The army 
officers who were anti-clerical were bitter in their opposition and jibes, 
but Bonaparte went resolutely ahead. He knew the influence that 
priests exercise over their flocks and he intended that they should ex- 
ercise it in his behalf. He meant to control them as he controlled the 
army and the thousands of state officials. The control of religion ought 
to be vested in the ruler. "It is impossible to govern without it," he 
said. He therefore turned to the Pope and made the treaty. "If the 
Pope had not existed," he said, "I should have had to create him for 
this occasion." 

By the Concordat the Catholic religion was recognized by the Re- 
public to be that "of the great majority of the French people" and its 
free exercise was permitted. The Pope agreed to a reorganization involv- 
ing a diminution in the number of bishoprics. He also recognized the 
sale of the church property effected by the Revolution. Henceforth the 
bishops were to be appointed by the First Consul but were to be actu- 
ally invested by the Pope. The bishops in turn were to appoint the 
priests, with the consent of the government. The bishops must take the 
oath of fidehty to the head of the state. Both bishops and priests were 
to receive salaries from the state. They really became state officials. 

The Concordat gave great satisfaction to the mass of the population 
for two reasons — it gave them back the normal exercise of the religion 
The Church ^^ which they believed, and it confirmed their titles to the 
controlled by lands of the Church which they had bought during the 
Revolution, titles which the Church now recognized as 
legal. The Church soon found that Bonaparte regarded it as merely 
another source of influence, an instrument of rule. The clergy now be- 



THE CIVIL CODE 189 

came his supporters and in large measure abandoned royalism. More- 
over Bonaparte, by additional regulations to which he did not ask the 
Pope's assent, bound the clergy hand and foot to his own chariot. 

The Concordat was nevertheless a mistake. France had worked out 
a poUcy of entire separation of church and state which, had it been al- 
lowed to continue, would have brought the blessing of tol- Effect of the 
eration into the habits of the country. But the Concordat Concordat 
cut this promising development short and by tying church and state 
together in a union which each shortly found disagreeable it left to the 
entire nineteenth century an irritating and a dangerous problem. Nor 
did it preserve, for long, happy relations between Napoleon and the 
Pope. Not many years later a quarrel arose between them which grew 
and grew until the Pope excommunicated Napoleon and Napoleon seized 
the Pope and kept him prisoner. Napoleon himself came to consider 
the Concordat as the worst blunder in his career. However its immedi- 
ate advantages were considerable. 

"My real glory," said Napoleon at St. Helena, "is not my having won 
forty battles. What will never be effaced, what will endure forever, is 
my Civil Code." He was undoubtedly mistaken as to the The Code 
durability of this achievement, but he was correct in placing Napoleon 
it higher than that activity which occupied far more of his time. The 
famous Code Napoleon was an orderly, systematic, compact statement 
of the laws of France. Pre-revolutionary France had been governed by 
a perplexing number of systems of law of different historical origins. 
Then had come, with the Revolution, a flood of new legislation, inspired 
by different principles and greatly increasing the sum-total of laws in 
force. It was desirable to sift and harmonize all these statutes, and to 
present to the people of France a body of law, clear, rational, and logi- 
cally arranged, so that henceforth all the doubt, uncertainty, and con- 
fusion which. had hitherto characterized the administration of justice 
might be avoided and every Frenchman might easily know what his legal 
rights and relations were, with reference to the state and The Code 

his fellow citizens. The Constituent Assembly, the Con- ^^^^^ "Po° 
.1 T^' , 1 1 11 • 1 , , ,- , . foundations 

vention, the Directory, had all appreciated the need of this laid by the 
codification and had had committees at work upon it, but various ^ 
the work had been uncompleted. Bonaparte now lent the ary Assem- 
driving force of his personahty to the accomplishment of ^^^^ 
this task, and in a comparatively brief time the lawyers and the 



igo THE CONSULATE 

Council of State to whom he intrusted the work had it finished. The 
code to which Napoleon attached his name preserved the principle of 
civil equality estabhshed by the Revolution. It was immediately put 
into force in France and was later introduced into countries conquered 
or influenced by France, Belgium, the German territories west of the 
Rhine, and Italy. 

Bonaparte's own direct share in this monumental work was consid- 
erable and significant. Though no lawyer himself, and with httle tech- 
nical knowledge of law, his marvelous intellectual ability, 
share in the the precision, penetration, and pertinence of many of his 
making of criticisms, suggestions, questions, gave color and tone and 
character to the complete work. He presided over many 
of the sessions of the Council of State devoted to the elaboration of this 
code. "He spoke," says a witness, "without embarrassment and with- 
out pretension. He was never inferior to any member of the Council; 
he often equaled the ablest of them by the ease with which he seized the 
point of a question, by the justness of his ideas and the force of his 
reasoning; he often surprised them by the turn of his phrases and the 
originality of his expression." Called a new Constantine by the clergy 
for having made the Concordat, Bonaparte was considered by the lawyers 
a new Justinian. He was as a matter of fact, in many respects, the 
superior of both. 

During these years of the Consulate Bonaparte achieved many 
other things than those which have been mentioned. He improved the 
The Bank system of taxation greatly, and brought order into the 
of France national finances. He founded the Bank of France which 
still exists — and another institution which has come down to our own 
day, the Legion of Honor, for the distribution of honors and emoluments 
The Legion to those who rendered distinguished service to the state, 
of Honor Opposed as undemocratic, as offensive to the principle of 

equaUty, it was nevertheless instituted. Though open to those who had 
rendered civil service as well as to those who had rendered military, as 
a matter of fact Napoleon conferred only 1,400 crosses out of 48,000 upon 
civilians. 

Nor did this exhaust the hst of durable achievements of this crowded 
National period of the Consulate. The system of national education 

education ^^rg^s in part reorganized, and industry and commerce re- 
ceived the interested attention of the ambitious ruler. Roads were 



BONAPARTE AND ROYALIST CONSPIRATORS 



191 



improved, canals were cut, ports were dredged. The economic develop- 
ment of the country was so rapid as to occasion some uneasiness in 
England. 

Thus was carried through an extensive and profound renovation of 
the national life. This period of the Consulate is that part of Bonaparte's 

career which was most useful 
to his fellow men, most contrib- 
utory to the welfare of his 
country. His work was not 
accomplished without risk to 
himself. As his reputation and 
authority increased, the wrath 
of those who saw their way to 
power barred by his formid- 
able person increased also. At 
first the royalists Bonaparte 
had looked to him and the 
to imitate the ^°^ 
English General Monk who 
had used his position for the 
restoration of Charles II. But 
Bonaparte had no notion of 
acting any such graceful and altruistic a part. When this became 
apparent certain reckless royalists commenced to plot against him, 
began considering that it was possible to murder him. An attack upon 
him occurred shortly after Marengo. Many lives were lost but he 
escaped with his by the narrowest margin. 

A more serious plot was woven in London in the circle of the Count 
of Artois, younger brother of Louis XVI. The principal agents were 
Georges Cadoudal and Pichegru. Bonaparte, through his pohce, knew 
of the plot. He hoped, in allowing it to develop, to get his ^j^^ 
hands on the Count of Artois. But the Count did not land Cadoudal 
in France. Cadoudal and his accomplices were taken and ^°^^^^^^' 
shot. Pichegru was found strangled in prison. Bonaparte wished to 
make an example of the House of Bourbon which would be remembered. 
This led him to commit a monstrous crime. He ordered the seizure on 
German soil of the young Duke d'Enghien, the Prince of Conde, a mem- 
ber of a branch of the Bourbon family. The prince, who was innocent 




The Three Consuls 
After the medal in bronze by Jeu£froy. 



192 



THE CONSULATE 



of any connection whatever with the conspiracy, was abducted, brought 

r to Vincennes at five o'clock on the evening of March 20, 
Execution of . , 

the Duke 1804, was sent before a court-martial at eleven o'clock and 

d'Enghien ^^ ^^qXI past two in the night was taken out into the court- 
yard and shot. This was assassination pure and simple and it was 
Bonaparte's own act. It has 
remained ever since an odious 
blot upon his name, which the 
multitudinous seas cannot wash 
out. Its immediate object, how- 
ever, was achieved. The royal- 
ists ceased plotting the murder 
of the Corsican. 

A few days after this Bona- 
parte took another step forward 
in the consolidation of his powers. 
In 1802, after the Treaty of 
Amiens had been made, he had 
astutely contrived to have his 

consulate for ten 

years transformed 

into a consulate 

for life, with the 

right to name his 

successor. The only 
remaining step was taken in 1804 
when a servile Senate approved 
a new constitution, declaring him Emperor of the French, "this change 
being demanded by the interests of the French people." It was at 
any rate agreeable to the French people, who in a popular vote or plebis- 
cite ratified it overwhelmingly. Henceforth he is designated by his 
first name, in the manner of monarchs. It happened to be a more 
musical and sonorous name than most monarchs have possessed. 

"I found the crown of France lying on the ground," Napoleon once 
said, "and I picked it up with my sword," a vivid summary of a.n 
important chapter in his biography. 



General 
Bonaparte 
becomes 
Napoleon I, 
Emperor of 
the French 
(1804) 




The Duke d'Enghien, 

From an engraving after an original drawing by 

Count de Lely. 



REFERENCES 193 

Napoleon's Personal Qualities: Taine, Modern Regime, Vol. I, pp. 1-90; Rose, 
J. H., The Personality of Napoleon. 

The Campaign of 1800: Ropes, The First Napoleon, pp. 49-58; Fournier, Napo- 
leon I, pp. 188-208; Rose, Life of Napoleon I, Vol. I, pp. 221-245. 

Bonaparte's Policies as First Consul: Fisher, Napoleon, Chap. IV; Fournier, 
Chap. IX, pp. 221-241; Johnston, Napoleon, Chap. VII, pp. 88-102; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. IX, pp. 148-187; Rose, J. H., pp. 112-147. 

Napoleon and the Revolution: Fisher, Bonapartism, pp. 7-24. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 

The Empire lasted ten years, from 1804 to 18 14. It was a period of 
uninterrupted warfare in which a long series of amazing victories was 
swallowed up in final, overwhelming defeat. The central, overmastering 
figure in this agitating story, dominating the decade so completely that 
The Napo- it is known by his name, was this man whose ambition 
Iconic Age vaulted SO dizzily, only to o'erleap itself. Napoleon ranks 
with Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, as one of the most powerful 
conquerers and rulers of history. It would be both interesting and in- 
structive to compare these four. It is by no means certain that Napoleon 
would not be considered the greatest of them all. Certainly we have 
far more abundant information concerning him than we have concerning 
the others. 

When he became emperor he was thirty-five years old and was in 
the full possession of all his magnificent powers. For he was marvelously 
Personal gifted. His brain was a wonderful organ, swift in its proc- 

characteris- esses, tenacious in its grip, lucid, precise, tireless, and it 
was served by an incredibly capacious and accurate mem- 
ory. "He never blundered into victory," says Emerson, "but won his 
battles in his head, before he won them on the field." All his intellectual 
resources were available at any moment. He said of himself, "Different 
matters are stowed away in my brain as in a chest of drawers. When 
I wish to interrupt a piece of work I close that drawer and open another. 
None of them ever get mixed, never does this inconvenience or fatigue 
me. When I feel sleepy I shut all the drawers and go to sleep." 

Napoleon possessed a varied and vivid imagination, was always, as 
he said, "living two years in advance," weaving plans and dreams and 
then considering coolly the necessary ways and means to realize them. 
This union of the practical and the poetic, the reahstic and the imag- 
inative, each raised to the highest pitch, was rendered potent by a will 
that recognized no obstacles, and by an almost superhuman activity. 



NAPOLEON'S PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 195 

Napoleon loved work, and no man in Europe, and few in all history 

have labored as did he. "Work is my element, for which „. 

■^ His extraor- 

I was born and fitted," he said at St. Helena, at the end of dinary 

his life. "I have known the limits of the power of my capacity 

for work 
arms and legs; I have never discovered those of my power 

of work." Working twelve or sixteen and, if necessary, twenty hours a 
day, rarely spending more than fifteen or twenty minutes at his meals, 
able to fall asleep at will, and to awaken with his mind instantly alert, 
he lost no time and drove his secretaries and subordinates at full speed. 
We gain some idea of the prodigious labor accomplished by him when we 
consider that his published correspondence, comprising 23,000 pieces, 
fills thirty-two volumes and that 50,000 additional letters dictated by 
him are known to be in existence but have not yet been printed. Here 
was no do-nothing king but the most industrious man in Europe. Happy, 
too, only in his work. The ordinary pleasures of men he found tedious, 
indulging in them only when his position rendered it necessary. He 
rarely smiled, he never laughed, his conversation was gen- His bearing 
erally a monologue, but brilliant, animated, trenchant, ^^ society 
rushing, frequently impertinent and rude. He had no scruples and he 
had no manners. He was ill-bred, as was shown in his relations with 
women, of whom he had a low opinion. His language, whether ItaHan 
or French, lacked distinction, finish, correctness, but never lacked sali- 
ency or interest. The Graces had not presided over his birth, but the 
Fates had. He had a magnificent talent as stage manager and actor, 
setting the scenes, playing the parts consummately in all the varied 
ceremonies in which he was necessarily involved, coronation, reviews, 
diplomatic audiences, interviews with other monarchs. His proclama- 
tions, his bulletins to his army were masterpieces. He could cajole in 
the silkiest tones, could threaten in the iciest, could shed tears or burst 
into violence, smashing furniture and bric-a-brac when he felt that such 
actions would produce the effect desired. The Pope, Pius VII, seeing him 
once in such a display of passion, observed, "tragedian," "comedian." 

He had no friends, he despised all theorists like those who had 
sowed the fructifying seeds of the Revolution broadcast, he harried all 
opponents out of the country or into silence, he made His mastery 
his ministers mere hard-worked servants, but he won the °* others 
admiration and devotion of his soldiers by the glamor of his victories, 
he held the peasantry in the hollow of his hand by constantly guaran- 



196 THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 

teeing them their lands, and their civil equaHty, the things which were, 

in their opinion, the only things in the Revolution that counted. He 

was as little as he was big. He would lie shamelessly, would cheat at 

cards, was superstitious in strange ways. He was a man of whom 

more evil and more good can be said and has been said than of many 

historical figures. He cannot be easily described, and certainly not in 

any brief compass. 

Now that Napoleon was emperor he proceeded to organize the state 

imperially. Offices with high-sounding, ancient titles were created and 

Napoleon filled. There was a Grand Chamberlain, a Grand Marshal 

establishes of the Palace, a Grand Master of Ceremonies and so on. 

a court j^ court was created, expensive, and as gay as it could 

be made to be at a soldier's orders. The Emperor's family, declared 

Princes of France, donned new titles and prepared for whatever 

honors and emoluments might flow from the bubbling fountain-head. 

The court resumed the manners and customs which had been in vogue 

before the Revolution. Republican simplicity gave way to imperial 

Napoleon pretensions, attitudes, extravagances, pose. The consti- 

crowned in tution was revised to meet the situation, and Napoleon 
Notre Dame j . i 1 j ^ 

was crowned in a memorable and sumptuous ceremony m 

Notre Dame, the Pope coming all the way from Rome to assist — but 
not to crown. At the critical point in the splendid ceremony Napoleon 
crowned himself and then crowned the Empress. But the Pope poured 
the holy oil upon Napoleon's head. This former lieutenant of artillery 
thus became the "anointed of the Lord," in good though irregular 
standing. He crowned himself a little later King of Italy, after he had 
changed the Cisalpine Republic into the Kingdom of Italy (1805). 

The history of the Empire is the history of ten years of uninter- 
rupted war. Europe saw a universal menace to the independence and 
The period liberty of all states in the growing and arrogant ascend- 
pke^one'of ^"^^ °^ France, an ascendency and a threat all the more 
uninterrupted obvious and dangerous now that that country was abso- 
"^^ lutely in the hands of an autocrat, and that too an auto- 

crat who had grown great by war and whose miUtary tastes and 
talents would now have free rein. Napoleon was evoking on every 
occasion, intentionally and ostentatiously, the imperial souvenirs of 
JuUus Caesar and of Charlemagne. What could this mean except that 
he planned to rule not only France, but Europe, consequently the 



THE CROWNING OF JOSEPHINE 



197 




THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 




Napoleon in the Imperial Robes 
From an engraving after the picture by Gerard. 

world? Unless the other nations were willing to accept subordinate 
positions, were willing to abdicate their rank as equals in the family of 
nations, they must fight the dictatorship which was manifestly impend- 
ing. Fundamentally this is what the ten years' war meant, the right 
of other states to live and prosper, not on mere sufferance of Napoleon, 
but by their own right and because universal domination or the undue 



SEA-POWER VERSUS LAND-POWER 199 

ascendency of any single state would necessarily be dangerous to the 
other states and to whatever elements of civilization they represented. 
France already had that ascendency in 1804. Under Napoleon she 
made a tremendous effort to convert it into absolute and England the 
universal domination. She almost succeeded. That she constant 
failed was due primarily to the steadfast, unshakable, oppo- ^^^^^ 
sition of one power, England, which never acquiesced in her preten- 
sions, which fought them at every stage with all her might, through good 
report and through evil report, stirring up opposition wher- sea-power 
ever she could, weaving coalition after coalition, using her versus land- 
money and her navy untiringly in the effort. It was a war P"^^'' 
of the giants. A striking aspect of the matter was the struggle between 
sea-power directed by England, and land-power, directed by Napoleon. 
While the Empire was being organized in 1804 a new coalition was 
being formed against France, the third in the series we are studying. 
England and France had made peace at Amiens in 1802. Reasons for 
That peace lasted only a year, until May 17, 1803. Then England's 
the two states flew to arms again. The reasons were vari- °^ ^ ' ^ 
ous. England was jealous of the French expansion which had been 
secured by the treaties of Campo Formio and Luneville, French control 
of the left bank of the Rhine, French domination over considerable 
parts of the Italian peninsula, particularly French conquest of Bel- 
gium, including the fine port of Antwerp. England had always been 
opposed to French expansion, particularly northward along the Chan- 
nel, which Englishmen considered and called the EngUsh Channel. The 
English did not wish any rival along those shores. However, despite 
this, they had finally consented to make the Peace of Amiens. The chief 
motive had been the condition of their industries. The long war, since 
1793, had damaged their trade enormously. They hoped, by making 

peace with France, to find the markets of the Continent _ . ,. 

, , , .... The hollow- 

open to them once more, and thus to revive their trade, ness of the 

But they shortly saw that this was not at all the idea of ^^^^^ °f 

Amiens 
France. Napoleon wished to develop the industries of 

France, wished to have French industries not only supply the French 

market but win the markets of the other countries on the Continent. 

He therefore established high protective tariffs with this end in view. 

Thus English competition was excluded or at least greatly reduced. 

The English were extremely angry and did not at all propose to lie 



200 THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 

down supinely, beaten without a struggle. That had never been their 

custom. War would be less burdensome, said their business men. For 

England, commerce was her very breath of life. Without it she could 

not exist. This explains why, now that she entered upon a struggle in 

its defense, she did not lay down her arms again until she had her 

rival safely imprisoned on the island of St. Helena. 

There were other causes of friction between the twc countries which 

rendered peace most unstable. With both nations ready for war, though 

not eager for it, causes for rupture were not hard to find. War broke 

Renewal of out between them in May, 1803. Napoleon immediately 

the war seized Hanover, a possession in Germany of the English 

France and king. He declared the long coast of Europe from Hanover 

England southward and eastward to Taranto in Italy blockaded, 

that is, closed to English commerce, and he began to prepare for an 

invasion of England itself. This was a difficult task, requiring much 

time, for France was inferior to England on the seas and yet, unless she 

could control the Channel for a while at least, she could not send an 

army of invasion. Napoleon established a vast camp of 150,000 men at 

„ , Boulogne to be ready for the descent. He hastened the con- 

Napoleon f ■' 

threatens ■ struction of hundreds of flat-boats for transport. Whether 
to invade ^jj ^-j^jg ^^^^ mere make-believe intended to alarm England, 

whether he knew that after all it was a hopeless undertak- 
ing, and was simply displaying all this activity to compel England to 
think that peace would be wdser than running the risk of invasion, we 
do not positively know. 

At any rate England was not intimidated. She prepared for de- 
fense, and she also prepared for offense by seeking and finding allies on 
the Continent, by building up a coaHtion which might hold Napoleon 
in check, which might, it was hoped, even drive France back within her 
original boundaries, taking away from her the recent acquisitions of 
England Belgium, the left bank of the Rhine, and the ItaHan annexa- 

buiids up a tions and protectorates. England made a treaty to this 
new coaU- ^<^^qx with Russia, which had her own reasons for opposing 

France — her dread of his projects in the Eastern Medi- 
terranean at the expense of the Turkish Empire. For if any one was to 
carve up the Turkish Empire, Russia wished to do it herself. The Eng- 
lish agreed to pay subsidies to the Czar, a certain amount for every 
100,000 men she should furnish for the war. 



NAPOLEON ATTACKS AUSTRIA 201 

Finally in 1805 Austria entered the coalition, jealous of Napoleon's 
aggressions in Italy, anxious to wipe out the memory of Austria 
the defeats of the two campaigns in which he had con- joins the 
quered her in 1796 and 1800, eager, also, to recover the 
position she had once held as the dominant power in the Italian 
peninsula. 

Such was the situation in 1805. When he was quite ready Napoleon 

struck with tremendous effect, not against England, which he could not 

reach because of the silver streak of sea that lay between Napoleon's 

them, not against Russia, which was too remote for immedi- *^'5^ *^^™" 

... . paign 

ate attention, but against his old-time enemy, Austria, and against 

he bowled her over more summarily and more humiliatingly Austria 
than he had ever done before. 

The campaign of 1805 was another Napoleonic masterpiece. The 
Austrians, not waiting for their allies, the Russians, to come up, had sent 
an army of 80,000 men under General Mack up the Danube into Bavaria. 
Mack had taken his position at Ulm, expecting that Naploeon would 
come through the passes of the Black Forest, the most direct and the 
usual way for a French army invading southern Germany. But not at 
all. Napoleon had a very different plan. Sending enough troops into 
the Black Forest region to confirm Mack in his opinion that this was 
the strategic point to hold, and thus keeping him rooted there, Napoleon 
transferred his Grand Army from Boulogne and the shores of the English 
Channel, where it had been training for the past two years, across Ger- 
many from north to south, a distance of c;oo miles, in , 

■' ) J J Napoleon 

twenty-three days of forced marches, conducted in aston- attacks 
ishing secrecy and with mathematical precision. He thus ^^^k at 
threw himself into the rear of Mack's army, between it and 
Vienna, cutting the line of communication, and repeating the strategy 
of the Great Saint Bernard and Marengo campaign of iSoo. Mack had 
expected Napoleon to come from the west through the Black Forest. 
Instead, when it was too late, he found him coming from the east, up 
the Danube, toward Ulm. Napoleon made short work of Mack, forcing 
him to capitulate at Ulm, October 20. "l have accomplished what I 
set out to do," he wrote Josephine. "I have destroyed the Austrian 
army by means of marches alone." It was a victory won by legs 
— 60,000 prisoners, 120 guns, more than thirty generals. It had cost 
him only 1,500 men. 



202 THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 

The way was now open down the Danube to Vienna. Thither, 
along poor roads and through rain and snow Napoleon rushed, covering 
the distance in three weeks. Vienna was entered in triumph and with- 
out resistance as the Emperor Francis had retired in a northeasterly 
direction, desiring to effect a junction with the oncoming Russian army. 

Napoleon followed him and on December 2, 1805, won 
of Auster- perhaps his most famous victory, the battle of Austerlitz, 
litz (Decern- q^ j-]^g f^j-g^- anniversary of his coronation as Emperor. All 

day long the battle raged. The sun breaking through the 
wintry fogs was considered a favorable omen by the French and hence- 
forth became the legendary symbol of success. The fighting was terrific. 
The bravery of the soldiers on both sides was boundless, but the gen- 
eralship of Napoleon w^as as superior as that of the Austro-Russians 
was faulty. The result was decisive, overwhelming. The allies were 
routed and sent flying in every direction. They had lost a large number 
of men and nearly all of their artillery. Napoleon, with originally in- 
ferior numbers, had not used all he had, had not thrown in his reserves. 
The " Sun of No wonder he addressed his troops in an exultant strain. 
Austerlitz " " Soldiers, I am satisfied with you. In the battle of Aus- 
terlitz you have justified all my expectations by your intrepidity; you 
have adorned your eagles with immortal glory." No wonder that he 
told them that they were marked men, that on returning to France all 
they would need to say in order to command admiration would be: "I 
was at the battle of Austerlitz." 

The results of this brief and brilliant campaign were various and 
striking. The Russians did not make peace but withdrew in great dis- 
order as best they could to their own country. But Austria immediately 
signed a peace and a very costly one, too. By the Treaty of Pressburg, 
Th T t f ^^ctated by Napoleon, who now had beaten her disastrously 
Pressburg for the third time, she suffered her greatest humiliation, 
gg^jg™^^'" her severest losses. She ceded Venetia, a country she had 

held for eight years, since Campo Formio, to the Kingdom 
of Italy, whose king was Napoleon. Istria and Dalmatia also she ceded 
to Napoleon. Of all this coast line of the upper Adriatic she retained only 
the single port of Trieste. Not Austria but France was henceforth the 
chief Adriatic power. The German principalities, Bavaria and Baden, 
had sided with Napoleon in the late campaign and Austria was now 
compelled to cede to each of them some of her valuable possessions in 



NAPOLEON THE KING-MAKER 



203 



South Germany. Shut out of the Adriatic, shut out of Italy, Austria 

lost 3,000,000 subjects. She became nearly a land-locked country. 

Moreover she was compelled to acquiesce in other changes that Napoleon 

had made or was about to make in various countries. 

Napoleon began now to play with zest the congenial role of Charle- 

magne, about which he 

was prone to talk enthu- 
siastically and with rhe- 
torical extravagance. 
Having magically made 
himself Emperor, he now 
made others kings. As 
he abased mountains so 
he exalted valleys. In 
the early months of 1806 
he created four kings. 

He raised Napoleon 
Bavaria and the king- 

TTT .. , maker 

W ur tem- 

berg, hitherto duchies, 
to the rank of kingdoms, 
which they have since 
held, "in grateful rec- 
ompense for the attach- 
ment they have shown 
the Emperor," he said. 
During the campaign the 
King of Naples had at a 
critical moment sided 
with his enemies. Na- 
poleon therefore issued a simple decree, merely stating that "The 
House of Bourbon has ceased to rule in Naples." He gave the vacant 
throne to his brother Joseph, two years older than himself. Joseph, who 
had first studied to become a priest, then to become an army officer, 
and still later to become a lawyer, now found himself a king, not by the 
grace of God, but by the grace of a younger brother. 

The horn of plenty was not yet empty. Napoleon, after Auster- 
litz, forced the Batavian Republic, that is Holland, to become a mon- 




JosEPii IJiiN Ai'Aiiir, King of Naples 
After the painting by J. B. J. Wicar. 



204 



THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 



archy and to accept his brother Louis, thirty-two years of age, as its 
king. Louis, as mild as his brother was hard, thought that the way to 
rule was to consult the interests and win the affections of his subjects. 
As this was not Napoleon's idea, 
Louis was destined to a rough and 
unhappy, and also brief, experience 
as king. " When men say of a king 
that he is a good man, it means 
that he is a failure,'.' was the infor- 
mation that Napoleon sent Louis 
for his instruction. 

The number of kingdoms at 
Napoleon's disposal was limited, 
temporarily at least. But he had 
many other favors to bestow, 
which were not to be despised. 
The famUy Nor were they de- 
circle spised. His sister 

EHse was made Princess of Lucca 
and Carrara, his sister Pauline, a 
beautiful and luxurious young 
creature, married Prince Borghese 
and became Duchess of Guastalla, and his youngest sister, Caroline, who 
resembled him in strength of character, married Murat, the dashing 
cavalry officer, who now became Duke of Berg, an artificial state which 
Napoleon created along the lower Rhine. 

Two brothers, Lucien and Jerome, were not provided for, and thereby 
hangs a tale. Each had incurred Napoleon's displeasure, as each had 
Lucien and married for love and without asking his consent. He 
Jerome in had Other plans for them and was enraged at their in- 
dependence. Both were expelled from the charmed circle, 
until they should put away their wives and marry others accord- 
ing to Napoleon's taste, not theirs. This Lucien steadfastly refused to 
do and so he who, by his presence of mind on the 19th of Brumaire, had 
saved the day and rendered all this story possible, stood outside the 
imperial favor, counting no more in the history of the times. When 
Jerome, the youngest member of this astonishing family, and made of 
more pliable stuff, awoke from love's young dream, at the furious de- 




Louis Bo;^APARTE, King of Holland 
After the painting by Wicar, engraved by Read. 



CHANGES IN THE MAP OF GERMANY 



2 OS 



mands of Napoleon, and put away his beautiful American bride, the 
Baltimore belle, Elizabeth Patterson, then he too became a king. All 
who worshiped Mammon in those exciting days received their appro- 
priate reward. 

It would be pleasant to continue this catalogue of favors, scattered 

right and left by the man who had 
rapidly grown so great. Officials 
of the state, generals of the army, 
and more distant relatives received 
glittering prizes and went on their 
way rejoicing, anxious for more. 
Appetite is said to grow by that 
on which it feeds. 

More important far than this 
flowering of family fortunes was 
another result of the Austerlitz 
campaign, the transformation of 
Germany, effected by the French 
A\ith the eager and ^he trans- 
selfish cooperation of formation of 

G Germany 

e r m a n 

princes. That transformation, 
which greatly reduced the dis- 
tracting number of German states, 
by allowing some to absorb others, 
had already been going on for several years. When France acquired the 
German territory west of the river Rhine, it was agreed, in the treaties 
of Campo Formio and Luneville, that the princes thus dispossessed should 
receive'compensations east of the river Rhine. This obviously could not 
be done literally and for all, as every inch of territory east of the Rhine 
already had its ruler. As a matter of fact the change was worked out by 
compensating only the hereditary rulers. There were, both on the left 
bank and on the right and all throughout Germany, many petty states 
whose rulers were not hereditary — ecclesiastical states, and free impe- 
rial cities. Now these were tossed to the princes who ruled by heredi- 
tary right, as compensation for the territories they had lost west of the 
river Rhine. This wholesale destruction of petty German states for the 
advantage of other lucky German states was accomplished not by the 




Elise Bonaparte, Princess of Lucca 

From an anonymous engraving, after tlie 

painting by Counis. 



2o6 



THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 



Paris the 
center for 
the brisk 
traffic in 
German 
lands 



Germans themselves, which would have been shameless enough, but 
was accomplished in Paris. In the antechambers of the 
First Consul, particularly in the parlors of Talleyrand, the 
disgraceful begging for pelf went on. Talleyrand grew 
rapidly rich, so many 
were the "gifts" — 

one dreads to think what they 

would be called in a vulgar de- 
mocracy — which German princes 

gave him for his support in de- 

spoiHng their fellow-Germans. 

For months the disgusting traffic 

went on and, when it ended in 

the " Conclusion" of March, 1803, 

really dictated by Bonaparte, the 

number of German principalities 

had greatly decreased. All the 

ecclesiastical states of Germany, 

with one single exception, had 

disappeared and of the fifty free 

cities only six remained. All 

went to enlarge other states. At 

least the map of Germany was 

simpler, but the position of the Church and of the Empire was greatly 

altered. Of the 360 states which composed the Holy Roman or German 

Empire in 1792 only eighty-two remained in 1805. 

All this had occurred before Austerlitz. After Austerlitz the pace 

was increased, ending in the complete destruction of the Empire. Paris 

Effects of the 3,gain became the center of German politics and intrigues, 

Austerlitz as in 1803. The result was that in 1S06 the new kings of 
^ *^ Bavaria and Wiirtemberg and fourteen other German 

princes renounced their allegiance to the German Emperor, formed va 

new Confederation of the Rhine (July 12, 1806), recognized Napoleon 

Creation of ^^ ^^^^^ "Protector," made an offensive and defensive 

the Confed- alliance with him which gave to him the control of their 

thrRhine foreign policy, the settlement of questions of peace and 
war, and guaranteed him 63,000 German troops for his 

wars. Fresh annexations to these states were made. Thus perished 




Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese 
After the painting by Lefevre. 



CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 



207 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^K » ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 




^^^^I^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H. ^^ ' ^H^^H^^^^^^^^^^H 


m '" ^ 


HB'^I 


1 ^ 




^K "^ 


m 'Tf "'^1 













Caroline Bonaparte, Duchess of Berg, and Marie Murat 
From the painting by Vigee le Brun. 

many more petty German states, eagerly absorbed by the fortunate 

sixteen. 

Perished also the Holy Roman Empire which had been in existence, 

real or shadowy, for a thousand years. The secession of _ ^ ^ 

•^ ' -^ . Destruction 

the sixteen princes and the formation of the Confedera- of the Holy 

tion of the Rhine killed it. It was only formal interment, Ronif» 

-^ Empire 

therefore, when Napoleon demanded of the Emperor Fran- 
cis, whom he had defeated at Austerlitz, that he renounce his title 



2o8 



THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 



French in- 
fluence in 
Germany 



as Holy Roman Emperor. This Francis hastened to do (August 6, 1806), 
contenting himself henceforth with the new title he had given himself 
two years earher, when Napoleon had assumed the imperial title. Hence- 
forth he who had been Francis II 
of the Holy Roman Empire was 
called Francis I, Hereditary Em- 
peror of Austria. 

Napoleon, who could neither 
read nor speak a word of German, 
was now the real ruler of a large 
part of Germany, the strongest 
factor in German politics. To 

French domination 

of West Germany, 

annexed to France 
earlier, came an important in- 
crease of influence. It was now 
that French ideas began in a 
modified form to remould the civil 
life of South Germany. Tithes 
were abolished, the inequality of 
social classes in the eyes of the law 
was reduced though not destroyed, religious liberty was established, 
the position of the Jews was improved. The Germans lost in self-respect 
from this French domination, the patriotism of such as were patriotic 
was sorely wounded at the sight of this alien rule, but in the practical 
contrivances of a modernized social life, worked out by the French 
Revolution, and now in a measure introduced among them, they had 
a salutary compensation. 

While all this shifting of scenes was being effected Napoleon had 
kept a large army in South Germany. The relations with Prussia, 
The relations which country had been neutral for the past ten years, 
°^(f p"*^^- since the Treaty of Basel of 1795, were becoming strained 
become and grew rapidly more so. The policy of the Prussian 

stramed King, Frederick Wilham III, was weak, vacillating, covet- 

ous. His diplomacy was playing fast and loose with his obligations as 
a neutral and with his desires for the territorial aggrandizement of 
Prussia. Napoleon's attitude was insolent and contemptuous. Both 




Joachim Mukat, Duke of Berg 
After the painting by Gros. 



THE WAR PARTY IN BERLIN 



209 



sides made an unenviable but characteristic record in double-dealing. 
The sordid details, highly discreditable to both, cannot be narrated here. 
Finally the war party in Berhn got the upper hand, led by the high- 
spirited and beautiful Queen Louise and by the military chiefs, rehcs 




Jerome Bonaparte 
Engraved by I. G. Miiller. knight, and Frederich Miiller, son, en- 
gravers to his Majesty the King of Wiirtemberg, after a drawing by 
Madame Kinson. 



of the glorious era of Frederick the Great, who thought they could do 
what Frederick had done, that is, defeat the French with ease. As if 
to give the world some intimation of the terrible significance of their dis- 
pleasure they went to the French Embassy in Berlin and bravely whetted 
their swords upon its steps of stone. The royalist officers at Versailles 
in the early days of the Revolution had shown no more inane folly in 
playing with fire than did the Prussian miUtary caste at this time. The 



2IO THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 

one had learned its lesson. The other was now to go to the same pitiless 
school of experience. 

Hating France and having an insensate confidence in their own supe- 
riority, the Prussian war party forced the government to issue an ulti- 
matum to Napoleon, Emperor of the French, demanding 
^rance'Inr that he withdraw his French troops beyond the Rhine. 
Prussia Napoleon knew better how to give ultimatums than how 

^^^°^^ to receive them. He had watched the machinations of the 

Prussian ruling class with close attention. He was absolutely prepared 
when the rupture came. He now fell upon them like a cloudburst and 
administered a crushing blow in the two battles of Jena and Auerstadt, 
Disastrous fought on the same day at those two places, a few miles 
defeat of the ^part (October 14, 1806), he himself in command of the 
jenf and ^^ former, Davout of the latter. The Prussians fought bravely 
Auerstadt j^^t their generalship was bad. Their whole army was 
disorganized, became panic-stricken, streamed from the field of battle as 
best it could, no longer receiving or obeying orders, many throwing 
away their arms, fleeing in every direction. Thousands of prisoners were 
taken and in succeeding days French officers scoured the country after 
the fugitives, taking thousands more. The collapse was complete. 
There was no longer any Prussian army. One after another all the 
fortresses fell. 

On the 25th of October Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph. He had 
previously visited the tomb of Frederick the Great at Potsdam in order 
to show his admiration for his genius. He had the execrable 
fiftefs^B'er- taste, however, to take the dead Frederick's sword and 
lin (October g^g^ and send them to Paris as trophies. " The entire king- 
^ dom of Prussia is in my hands," he announced. He planned 

that the punishment should be proportionate to his rage. He drew up a 
decree deposing the House of Hohenzollern but did not issue it, waiting 
for a more spectacular moment. He laid enormous war contributions 
upon the unhappy victim. 

Napoleon postponed the announcement of the final doom until he 

should have finished with another enemy, Russia. Be- 

Detree^s fore leaving Berlin for the new campaign he issued the 

against famous decrees which declared the British Isles in a state 

°^ ^"^ of blockade and prohibited commerce with them on the 

part of his dominions and those of his allies. 



THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST RUSSIA 211 

In the campaign of 1806 the Russians had been alHed with the Prus- 
sians although they had taken no part, as the latter had not waited for 
them to come up. Napoleon now turned his attention to ^^^^ ^.^j^, 
them. Going to Warsaw, the leading city of that part of paign against 
Poland which Prussia had acquired in the partition of that 
country, he planned the new campaign, which was signalized by two 
chief battles, Eylau and Friedland. The former was one of the most 
bloody of his entire career. Fighting in the midst of a blinding snow- 
storm on February 8, 1807, Napoleon narrowly escaped defeat. The 
slaughter was frightful — " sheer butchery," said Napoleon later. " What 
carnage," said Ney, "and no results," thus accurately describing this en- 
counter. Napoleon managed to keep the field and in his usual way he 
represented the battle as a victory. But it was a drawn battle. For the 
first time in Europe he had failed to win. The Russian soldiers fought 
with reckless bravery — "it was necessary to kill them twice," was the 
way the French soldiers expressed it. 

Four months later, however, on June 14, 1807, on the anniversary of 
Marengo, Napoleon's star shone again unclouded. He won a victory at 
Friedland which, as he informed Josephine, "is the worthy t,, . „, 

X 116 D3.lu6 

sister of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena." The victory was of Friedland 
at any rate so decisive that the Czar, Alexander I, consented H^^^ ^^' 

■' ' ' 1807) 

to make overtures for peace. The Peace of Tilsit was con- 
cluded by the two Emperors in person after many interviews, the first 
one of which was held on a raft in the middle of the river Niemen. 
Not only did they make peace but they went further and The Treaties 
made a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive. Napo- °* ^^^^** 
leon gained a great diplomatic victory, which completely altered the pre- 
vious diplomatic system of Europe, a fitting climax to three years of 
remarkable achievement upon the field of battle. Exercising upon Alex- 
ander all his powers of fascination, of flattery, of imagination, of quick 
and sympathetic understanding, he completely won him over. The two 
Emperors conversed in the most dulcet, rapturous way. "Why did not 
we two meet earlier? " exclaimed the enthusiastic Czar prance and 
of All the Russias. With their two imperial heads bowed Russia be- 
over a map of Europe they proceeded to divide it. Alex- 
ander was given to understand that he might take Finland, which he 
coveted, from Sweden, and attractive pickings from the vast Turkish 
Empire were dangled somewhat vaguely before him. On the other hand 



212 



THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 



he recognized the changes Napoleon had made or was about to make in 
western Europe, in Italy, and in Germany. Alexander was to offer 
himself as a mediator between those bitter enemies, England and France, 




Napoleon Receiving Queen Louise of Prussia at Tilsit, July 6, 1807 

After the painting by Gosse. ' 

and, in case England declined to make peace, then Russia would join 
France in enforcing the continental blockade, which was designed to 
bring England to terms. 

Napoleon out of regard for his new friend and ally promised to allow 
Prussia dis- Prussia still to exist. The decree dethroning the House of 
membered Hohenzollern was never issued. But Napoleon's terms to 
Prussia were very severe. She must give up all her territory west of the 



NAPOLEON CREATES NEW STATES 



213 



River Elbe. Out of this and other German territories Napoleon now 
made the Kingdom of Westphalia which he gave to his brother Jerome, 
who had by this time divorced his American wife. Prussia's eastern pos- 
sessions were also diminished. Most of what she had acquired in the par- 
titions of Poland was taken from her and created into the Grand Duchy 

of Warsaw, to be ruled over 
by the sovereign of Saxony, 
whose title of Elector Napo- 
leon at this juncture now 
changed into that of King. 

These three ^, ^ 

The Con- 
states, Westpha- federation of 

lia, Saxony, and *« ^^^^ 

enlarged 
the Duchy of 

W^arsaw^ now entered the Con- 
federation of the Rhine, 
whose name thus became a 
misnomer, as the Confedera- 
tion included not only the 
Rhenish and South German 
states but stretched from 
France to the Vistula, includ- 
ing practically all Germany 
except Prussia, now reduced 
to half her former size, and 
except Austria. 

Naturally Napoleon was in 
high feather as he turned homeward. Naturally, also, he was pleased 
with the Czar. " He is a handsome, good young emperor, with more mind 
than he is generally credited with" — such was Napoleon's encomium. 
Next to being sole master of all Europe came the sharing of mastery with 
only one other. A few months later he wrote his new ally that " the 
work of Tilsit will regulate the destinies of the world." There only re- 
mained the English, "the active islanders," not yet charmed or con- 
quered. In the same letter to the Czar Napoleon refers to them as " the 
enemies of the world" and told how they could be easily brought to 
book. He had forgotten, or rather he had wished to have the world 
forget, that there was one monstrous flaw in the apparent perfection of 




Lord Nelson 
From an engraving by S. Freeman, after the paint- 
ing by Abbott. 



214 THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EMPIRE 

his prodigious success. Two years before, on the very day after the 
capitulation of Ulm, Admiral Nelson had completely de- 
of Trafalgar stroyed the French fleet in the battle of Trafalgar (October 
(October 21, 21, 1805), giving his life that England might live and in- 
spiring his own age and succeeding ages by the cry, "Eng- 
land expects every man to do his duty! " 

The French papers did not mention the battle of Trafalgar but it 
nevertheless bulks large in history. This was Napoleon's second taste 
of sea-power, his first having been, as we have seen, in Egypt, several 
years before, also at the hands of Nelson. 

Napoleon returned to Paris in the pride of power and of supreme 
achievement. But, it is said, pride cometh before a fall. Was the 
race mistaken when it coined this cooling phrase of proverbial wisdom? 
It remained to be seen. 

REFERENCES 

Napoleon becomes Emperor: Rose, Life of Napoleon I, Vol. I, Chap. XX, pp. 
429-444; Fournier, Napoleon I, pp. 278-282; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IX, 
pp. 107-122. 

The Austerlitz Campaign: Fisher, Napoleon, pp. 125-142; Johnston, Napoleon, 
pp. 119-129; Ropes, The First Napoleon, pp. 108-117; Fournier, Chap. XI, pp. 283- 
324; Rose, Vol. II, pp. 1-46. 

The Battle of Trafalgar: Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon French Revolu- 
tion and Napoleon, Vol. II, Chap. XVI; Mahan, Life of Nelson, Vol. I, Chap. X; Vol. 
II, Chaps. XVI and XXIII. 



CHAPTER X 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 

After Tilsit there remained England, always England, as the enemy 
of France. In 1805 Napoleon had defeated Austria, in 1806 Prussia, in 
1807 Russia. Then the last named power had shifted its poUcy com- 
pletely, had changed partners, 
and, discarding its former allies, 
had become the ally of its former 
enemy. 

Napoleon was now in a posi- 
tion to turn his attention to Eng- 
land. As she was mistress of the 
seas, as she had at the battle of 
Trafalgar in 1805 destroyed the 
French navy, the Emperor was 
compelled to find 
other means, if there 
were any, of hum- 
bling the elusive 
enemy. England 
beaten, but how? Napoleon now 
adopted a policy which the Con- 
vention and the Directory had 
originated. Only he gave to it a 
gigantic application and development. This was the Continental System, 
or the Continental Blockade. If England could not be conquered directly 
by French fleets and armies, she might be conquered indirectly. 

England's power lay in her wealth, and her wealth came from her 
factories and her commerce which carried their products to the markets 
of the world, which brought her the necessary raw materials, and which 
kept open the fruitful connection with her scattered colonies. Cut this 

215 




Napoleon 
now free to 
deal with 
England 

must be 



Qlfeen Louise of Prussia 
From an engraving by Ruscheweyh. 



2i6 THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 

artery, prevent this commerce, close these markets, and her prosperity 

^^ would be destroyed. Manufacturers would be compelled 

The source -' - _ ■ '■ 

of England's to shut down their factories. Their employees, thrown out 
strength ^^ work, would face starvation. With that doom impend- 

ing, the working classes and the industrial and commercial classes, 
threatened with ruin, would resort to terrific pressure upon the EngHsh 
government, to insurrections, if necessary, to compel it to sue for 
peace. Economic warfare was now to be tried on a colossal scale. By 
exhausting England's resources it was hoped and expected that Eng- 
land would be exhausted. 

By the Berlin Decrees (November, iSo6), Napoleon declared a block- 
ade of the British Isles, forbade all commerce with them, all corre- 
Napoleon spondence, all trade in goods coming from England or her 

declares a colonies, and ordered the confiscation and destruction of 

blockade of ,, t^ ,. , i • -r^ 

the British all Enghsh goods found in France or in any of the countries 

^^'^^ allied with her. No vessel coming from England or Eng- 

land's colonies should be admitted to their ports. To this England re- 
plied by severe Orders in Council, which Napoleon capped by additional 
decrees, issued from Milan. 

This novel form of warfare had very important consequences. This 
struggle with England dominates the whole period from 1807 to 1814. 
Epochal It is the central thread that runs through all the tangled 

the'^-tru'^ 1** ^"^^ tumultuous history of those years. There were plays 
-with Eng- within the play, complications and struggles with other 
^^^ nations which sometimes rose to such heights as momen- 

tarily to obscure the titanic contest between sea-power and land-power. 
But the fundamental, all-inclusive contest, to which all else was subsid- 
iary or collateral, was the war to the knife between these two, England 
and France. Everywhere we see its influence, whether in Spain or 
Russia, in Rome or Copenhagen, along the Danube or along the Tagus. 

The Continental System had this peculiarity, that, to be successful 

in annihilating English prosperity and power, it must be applied every- 

The Conti- where and constantly. The Continent must be sealed 

nental hermetically against Enghsh goods. . Only then, with their 

System 1 , , 

necessary markets closed to them everywhere, would the 

English be forced to yield. Let there be a leak anywhere, let there be a 

strip of coast, as in Portugal or Spain or Italy, where Enghsh ships could 

touch and land their goods, and through that leak England could and 



NAPOLEONIC ANNEXATIONS 217 

would penetrate, could and would distribute her wares to eager customers, 
thus escaping the industrial strangulation intended by the Emperor of 
the French. This necessity Napoleon saw clearly. It was never absent 
from his mind. It inspired his conduct at every step. It involved him 
inevitably and, in the end, disastrously, in a policy of systematic and 
widespread aggressions upon other countries, consequently in a costly 
succession of wars. 

To close simply the ports of France and of French possessions to 
English commerce w^ould not at all accomplish the object aimed at. 
Napoleon must have the support of every other seaboard country in 
Europe. This he sought to get. He was willing to get it peacefully if 
he could, prepared to get it forcibly if he must. He secured the ad- 
hesion of Russia by the Treaty of Tilsit. Austria and Prussia, having 
been so decisively beaten, had to consent to apply the system to their 
dominions. Little Denmark, perforce, did the same when Attempts to 
the demand came. Sweden on the other hand adhered to enforce the 
the English alliance. Consequently Russia was urged to j^^^j ^^ 
take Finland, which belonged to Sweden, w^ith its stretch of repeated acts 
coastline and its excellent harbors. Napoleon's brother ° aggression 
Louis, King of Holland, would not enforce the blockade, as to do so meant 
the ruin of Holland. Conseciuently he was in the end forced to abdicate 
and Holland was annexed to France (1810). France also annexed the 
northern coasts of Germany up to Liibeck, including the fine ports of 
Bremen and Hamburg and the mouths of those rivers which led into 
central Germany (iSio). In Italy the Pope wished to remain neutral 
but there must be no neutrals, in Napoleon's and also in England's opin- 
ion, if it could be prevented. In this case it could. Consequently Na- 
poleon annexed part of the Papal States to the so-called Kingdom of 
Italy, of which he was himself the King, and part he incorporated directly 
and without ado into the French Empire (1809). Immediately the Pope 
excommunicated him and preached a holy war against the Rupture 
impious conqueror. Napoleon in turn took the Pope pris- with the 
oner and kept him such for several years. This was in- °^^ 
jecting the religious element again into politics, as in the early days of 
the Revolution, to the profound embitterment of the times. Some of 
these events did not occur immediately after Tilsit but did occur in 
the years from 1809 to 181 1. 

What did occur immediately after Tilsit was a famous and fatal 



2i8 THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 

misadventure in Portugal and Spain. Portugal stood in close economic 
and Dolitical relations with England and was reluctant to 

Attack upon ^ . . r i ^ • i -ni i i tt 

Portugal enforce the restrictions of the Contmentai Blockade. Her 

^^^^'^^ coastUne was too important to be allowed as an open gap. 

Therefore Napoleon arranged with Spain for the conquest and partition 
of that country. ■ French and Spanish armies invaded Portugal, aiming 
at Lisbon. Before they arrived Napoleon had announced in his impres- 
sive and laconic fashion that " the fall of the House of Bra- 
of Braganza ganza furnishes one more proof that ruin is inevitable to 
has ceased whomsoever attaches himself to the English." The royal 
° "^"^^ family escaped capture by sailing for the colony of Brazil 

and seeking safety beyond the ocean. There they remained until the 
overthrow of Napoleon. 

This joint expedition had given Napoleon the opportunity to intro- 
duce large bodies of troops into the country of his ally, Spain. They now 
remained there, under Murat, no one knew for what purpose, ^=^ no one, 
except Napoleon, in whose mind a dark and devious plan was maturing. 
The French had dethroned the House of Bourbon in France during the 
Revolution. Napoleon had himself after Austerlitz dethroned the House 
of Bourbon in Naples and had put his brother Joseph in its place. Thf;re 
remained a branch of that House in Spain, and that branch was in a 
particularly corrupt and decadent condition. The King, Charles IV, was 
The situa- Utterly incompetent; the Queen grossly immoral and en- 
tion in dowed with the tongue of a fishwife; her favorite and 

^^^ paramour, Godoy, was the real power behind the throne. 

The whole unsavory group was immensely unpopular in Spain. On the 
other hand, the King's son, Ferdinand, was idolized by the Spanish 
people, not because of anything admirable in his personality, which was 
utterly despicable, .but because he was opposed to his father, his mother, 
and Godoy. Napoleon thought the situation favorable to his plan, which 
was to seize the throne thus occupied by a family rendered odious by its 
character and impotent by its dissensions. By a, treacherous and hypo- 
critical diplomacy he contrived to get Charles IV, the Queen, Godoy, 
and Ferdinand to come to Bayonne in southern France. No hungry 
spider ever viewed more coolly a more helpless prey entangled in his 
web. By a masterly use of the black arts of dissimulation, vituperation, 
and intimidation he swept the whole royal crew aside. Charles abdi- 
cated his throne into the hands of Napoleon, who thereupon forced 



THE COSTLY SPANISH ADVENTURE 219 

Ferdinand to renounce his rights under a thinly veiled threat that, if he 
did not, the Duke d'Enghien would not be the only member of the 
House of Bourbon celebrated for an untoward fate. Fer- Napoleon 
dinand and his brothers were sent as prisoners to a chateau makes his 
at Valengay. The vacant throne was then given by Napo- Joseph King 
leon to his brother Joseph, who thereupon abdicated the of Spain 
kingship of Naples, which now passed to Murat, Napo- 
leon's brother-in-law. 

Napoleon later admitted that it was this Spanish business that de- 
stroyed him. "I embarked very badly on the Spanish affair, I confess; 
the immorality of it was too patent, the injustice too cynical." But this 
was the judgment of retrospect. He entered upon the venture with a 
light heart, confident that at most he would encounter only a feeble 
opposition. "Countries full of monks like yours," he told Ferdinand, 
" are easy to subdue. There may be some riots, but the Spaniards will 
quiet down when they see that I offer them the integrity of the boun- 
daries of their kingdom, a liberal constitution, and the preservation of 
their religion and their national customs." Contrary to j^^ Span- 
his expectation the conduct of the Spaniards was quite the iards rise 
reverse of this. He might offer them, as he did, better 
government than they had ever had. They hated him as a thief and 
trickster, also as a heretic, as a man whose character and policies and 
ideas were anathema. Napoleon embarked on a live years' war with 
them, which baffled him at every stage, drained his resources, in a con- 
test that was inglorious, resources which should have been husbanded 
most carefully for more important purposes. " If it should cost me 80,000 
men" to conquer Spain, "l would not attempt it," he said at the begin- 
ning, " but it will not take more than 12,000." A ghastly miscalculation, 
for it was to take 300,000 and to end in failure. 

He encountered in Spain an opposition very different in kind and 

quality from any he had met hitherto in Italy or Germany, baffling, 

elusive, wearing. Previously he had waged war with gov- 

, II- • -1 1 • • Napoleon 

ernments only and their armies, not with peoples rising as arouses the 

one man, resolved to die rather than suffer the loss of their ^p^"* °^ 

nationahsm 
mdependence. The people of Italy, the people of Austria, 

the people of Germany, had not risen. Their governments had not ap- 
pealed to them, but had relied upon their usual weapon, professional 
armies. Defeating these, as Napoleon had done with comparative ease. 



220 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 



the governments had then sued for peace and endured his terms. No 
great wave of national feeling, daring all, risking all, had swept over 
the masses of those countries where he had hitherto appeared. France 
had herself undergone this very experience and her armies had won 
their great successes because they were aglow with the spirit of nation- 
ality, which had been so aroused and intensified by the Revolution. 
Now other countries were to take a page out of her book, at the very 
time when she was showing a tendency to forget that page herself. The 
Spanish rising was the first of a series of popular, national, instinctive 
movements that were to end in Napoleon's undoing. 

The kind of warfare that the Spaniards carried on was peculiar, 
determined by the physical features of the land and by the cir- 
Character of cumstances in which they found themselves. Lacking the 
, war in Spain leadership of a government — their royal family being 
virtually imprisoned in France — poor, and without large armies, they 
fought as guerillas, little bands, not very formidable in themselves in- 
dividually, but appearing now here, now there, now everywhere, picking 
off smaU detachments, stragglers, then disappearing into their mountain 
fastnesses. They thus repeated the history of their long struggles with 
The influ- the Moors. Every peasant had his gun and every peasant 
ence of the -^^^g inspired by loyalty to his country, and by rehgious zeal, 
against as the Vendeans had been. The Catholic clergy entered 

Napoleon again upon the scene, fanning the popular animosity against 

this despoiler of the Pope, and against these French free-thinkers. Na- 
poleon had aroused two mighty forces which were to dog his footsteps 
henceforth, that of religious zeal, and that of the spirit of nationality, 
each with a fanaticism of its own. 

Even geography, which Napoleon had hitherto made minister to his 
successes, was now against him. The country was poor, the roads were 
Geography execrable, the mountains ran in the wrong direction, right 
against him across his path, the rivers also. In between these successive 
mountain ranges, in these passes and valleys, it was difficult for large 
armies, such as Napoleon's usually were, to operate. It was easy for 
mishaps to occur, for guerilla bands or small armies to cut off lines of 
communication, for them to appear in front and in the rear at the same 
time. The country was admirable for the defensive, difficult for the 
offensive. This was shown early in the war when General Dupont was 
caught in a trap and obhged to capitulate with an army of 20,000 at 



THE ERFURT INTERVIEW 221 

Baylen (July, 1808). This capitulation produced a tremendous impres- 
sion throughout Europe. It was the first time a French _. ^ . 

11 1 • r 11 ^^^ Capitu- 

army corps had been compelled to ground arms m full cam- lation of 

paign. It was the heaviest blow Napoleon had yet received ^,^^^®°,„„„ 
^ , , . , , (July, 1808) 

in his career. It encouraged the Spaniards, and other 

peoples also, who were only waiting to see the great conqueror trip and 
who were now fired with hope that the thing might be done again. Napo- 
leon was enraged, stormed against the unfortunate army, declared that 
from the beginning of the world nothing "so stupid, so silly, so cow- 
ardly" had been seen. They had had a chance to distinguish them-- 
selves, " they might have died," he said. Instead they had surrendered. 

Joseph, the new King, who had been in his capital only a week, left 
it hurriedly and withdrew toward the Pyrenees, writing his brother 
that Spain was like no other country, that they must -^ Joseph 
have an army of 50,000 to do the fighting, another of 50,000 seeks safety 
to keep open the line of communications, and 100,000 "^ ^ 
gallow^s for traitors and scoundrels. 

There was another feature of this war in the Peninsula, England's 
participation. An army was sent out under Sir Arthur Wellesley, later 
Duke of Welhngton, to cooperate with the Portuguese and 
Spaniards. Wellesley, who had aheady distinguished him- join in the 
seK in India, now began to build up a European reputation Peninsula 
as a careful, original, and resourceful commander. Land- 
ing at Lisbon, the expedition shortly forced the French commander 
Junot to capitulate at Cintra (August, 1808), as Dupont had been 
forced to in the preceding month at Baylen. 

These were disasters which Napoleon could not allow to stand 

unanswered. His prestige, his reputation for invincibility must remain 

undiminished or Europe generally would become rest- 

1 '11 1 1 1 r 11 T , , Napoleon 

less, with what result no one could foretell. He resolved resolves to 

therefore to go to Spain himself and show" the Spaniards ^o to Spain 
and all other peoples how hopeless it was to oppose him, 
how minor and casual defeats of his subordinates meant nothing, how 
his own mighty blows could no more be parried than before. But, 
before going, he wished to make quite sure of the general European sit- 
uation. He arranged therefore for an interview at Erfurt in the center 
of Germany with his ally, Alexander of Russia. The two emperors spent 
a fortnight discussing their plans, examining every phase of the inter- 



222 THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 

national situation (September-October, 1808). This Erfurt Interview 
The Erfurt was the most spectacular episode in Napoleon's career as 
Interview ^ diplomatist. He sought to dazzle Europe with his might, 
-October, to impress the imaginations of men, and their fears, to show 
1808) ^]^2ii lY^Q Franco-Russian alliance, concluded at Tilsit the 

year before, stood taut and firm and could not be shaken. All the kings 
and princes of Germany were summoned to give him, their "Protector," 
an appropriate and glittering setting. Napoleon brought with him the 
best theatrical troop in Europe, the company of the Theatre Franqais, and 
they played, as the pretentious expression was, to "a parterre of kings." 
On one occasion when Talma, the famous tragedian recited the words, 

"The friendship of a great man 
Is a true gift of the gods," 

the Czar arose, seized Napoleon's hand, and gave the signal for applause. 

Day after day was filled with festivities, dinners, balls, hunts, reviews. 

The gods of German hterature and learning, Goethe and Wieland, paid 

their respects. Meanwhile the two allies carefully canvassed the situa- 

^^ , tion. In general the Czar was cordial, for he saw his 

Napoleon . ° . ' 

and Alex- profit in the alliance. But now and then a little rift in the 
ander in j^^g appeared. One day, as they were discussing, Napo- 

concerning leon became angry, threw his hat on the floor and stamped 
o^^he w^M ^P°"^ ^^' Alexander merely observed "You are angry, I 
am stubborn. With me anger gains nothing. Let's talk, 
let's reason together, or I shall leave." 

The result of the interview was in the main satisfactory enough to 
both. The accord between the two seemed complete. The alliance 
was renewed, a new treaty was made, which was to be kept secret "for 
ten years at least," and now Napoleon felt free to direct his attention 
to the annoying Spanish problem, resolved to end it once for all. As- 
sembling a splendid army of 200,000 men he crossed the Pyrenees 
and in a brief campaign of a month he swept aside all obstacles with 
Napoleon comparative ease, and entered Madrid (December, 1808).^ 

conquers There he remained a few weeks sketching the institu- 

ber 'isosr^""" ^^°"^ °^ ^^e new Spain which he intended to create. It 
would certainly have been a far more rational and enlight- 
ened and progressive state than it ever had been in the past. He declared 
the Inquisition, which still existed, abohshed; also the remains of the 
feudal system; also the tariff boundaries which shut off province from 



THE WAR OF 1809 WITH AUSTRIA 223 

province to the great detriment of commerce. He closed two-thirds of 
the monasteries, which were more than superabundant in the land. 
But, just as no individual cares to be reformed under the compul- 
sion of a master, so the Spaniards would have nothing to do with these 
modern improvements in the social art, imposed by a heretic and a ty- 
rant, who had wantonly filched their throne and invaded their country. 

Napoleon might perhaps have established his control over Spain 
so firmly that the new institutions would have struck Napoleon 
root, despite this opposition. But time was necessary hurries back 
and time was something he could not command. In 
Madrid only a month, he was compelled to hurry back to France 
because of alarming news that reached him. He never returned to 
^pain. 

Austria had thrown down the gauntlet again. It was entirely nat- 
ural for her to seek at the convenient opportunity to avenge the humilia- 
tions she had repeatedly endured at the hands of France, Austria 

to recover the position she had lost. Moreover the close ^^s'^s a 
^ . new war 

alliance of Russia and France and Napoleon's seizure of with France 

the Spanish crown filled her with alarm. If Napoleon was ^^v^'^' 1809) 

capable of treating in this way a hitherto submissive ally, such as Spain 

had been, what might he not do to a chronic enemy and now a mere 

neutral like Austria, particularly as the latter had nowhere to look for 

support since Russia had deserted the cause. Moreover Austria had 

learned something from her disastrous experiences; among 

other things that her previous mihtary system was defec- the military 

tive in that it made no appeal to the people, to national system of 

. r- jr 7 Austria 

sentiment. After Austerlitz- the army was reorganized and 

a great militia was created composed of all men between the ages of 
eighteen and twenty-five. A promising invigoration of the national 
consciousness began. What occasion could be more convenient for pay- 
ing off old scores and regaining lost ground than this, with Napoleon 
weakened by the necessity of holding down a spirited and outraged 
nation Hke the Spanish, resolved to go to any lengths, and by the neces- 
sity of checking or crushing the English in Portugal? 

Under the influence of such considerations the war party gained the 
ascendency, and Austria, under the lead of Archduke Charles, brother 
of the Emperor and a very able commander, began a war in the spring 
of 1809. This war, which Napoleon did not seek, from which he had 



224 THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 

nothing to gain, was another Austrian mistake. Austria should have 

allowed more time for the full development of her new miHtary system 

before running perilous risks again. 

The Austrians paid for their precipitancy. Napoleon astonished 

them again by the rapidity of his movements. In April, 1809, he fought 

Napoleon them in Bavaria, five battles in five days, throwing them 

conquers back. Then he advanced down the Danube, entered Vienna 

the fourth without difiiculty and crossed the river to the northern 

t"™^ bank, whither the army of the Archduke had withdrawn. 

There Napoleon fought a two days' battle at Esshng (May 21-22). 

The fighting was furious, the village of Essling changing hands nine times. 

Napoleon was seriously checked. He was obliged to take refuge for six 

weeks on the Island of Lobau in the Danube, until additional troops were 

brought up from Italy, and from Germany. Then, when his army was 

sufficiently reinforced, he crossed to the northern bank again and fought 

the great battle of Wagram (July S~6). He was victorious 
The battle , ° , . ^ at .t., a 1 

of Wagram but m no superlative sense as at Austerlitz. The Arch- 

(Juiy 5-6, duke's army retired from the field in good order. The 

1809 ) ^ ° 

losses had been heavy but no part of the army had been 
captured, none of the flags taken. This was the last victorious campaign 
fought by Napoleon. Even in it he had won his victory with unaccus- 
tomed difficulty. His army was of inferior quality, many of his best 
troops being detained by the inglorious Spanish adventure and the new 
soldiers proving inferior to the old veterans. Moreover he was encoun- 
tering an opposition that was stronger in numbers, because of the army 
reforms just alluded to, while opposing generals were learning lessons 
from a study of his methods and were turning them against him. Arch- 
duke Charles, for instance, revered Napoleon's genius but he now fought 
him tooth and nail and with ability. 

After Wagram, Austria again made peace with Napoleon, the Peace 
of Vienna or of Schonbrunn. Austria was obliged to relinquish exten- 
The Treaty ^^^^ territories. Galicia, which was the part of Poland 
of Vienna she had acquired in the famous partitions, now went — 
1809°^^'^' ^ P^^t of it to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a part of it to 
Russia. She was also forced to cede to France Trieste, 
Carniola, and part of Carinthia and Croatia. These were made into the 
lUyrian Provinces which were declared imperial territory, although not 
formally annexed to France. Austria lost 4,000,000 subjects, nearly a 



220 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 



sixth of all that she possessed. She lost her only port and became en- 
tirely land-locked. 

Having defeated Austria for the fourth time, Napoleon treated 
Europe to one of those swift transformation scenes of which he was fond 
as showing his easy and incalculable mastery of the situation. He con- 
tracted a marriage alliance with the House of Hapsburg which he had 
so repeatedly humbled, one of the proudest royal houses in Europe. He 
had long considered .the advisabihty of a divorce from Josephine, as she 
had given him no heir and as the stability of the system he had erected 
depended upon his having one. At his demand the Senate dissolved his 
marriage with Josephine, and the ecclesiastical court in Paris was even 
more accommodating, declaring that owing to some irregularity the 
marriage had never taken place at all. Free thus by action of the State 
and the Church he asked the 
Emperor of Austria for the 
hand of his 
daughter, the 
Archduchess Ma- 
rie Louise, and 
received it. This political 
marriage was considered ad- 
vantageous on both sides. It 
seemed likely to prevent any 
further trouble between the 
two countries, to serve as a 
protection to Austria, to raise 
Napoleon's prestige by his 
connection with one of the 
oldest and proudest reigning 
houses of Europe, and to in- 
sure the continuance of the 
regime he had established with 
such display of genius. Thus 
only seventeen years after the 
execution of Marie Antoinette, another Austrian princess sat upon the 
throne of France. The marriage occurred in 1810 and in the following 
year was born the son for whom the title "King of Rome" stood ready. 



Napoleon 
marries the 
Archduchess 
Marie Louise 
(April, 1810) 




Empress Marie Louise 
From a picture by Prudhon. 



REFERENCES 227 

Napoleonic Creations: Fisher, pp. 153-168; Fournier, Chap. XII, pp. 325-355; 
Fyffe, History of Alodern Europe, pp. 166-173. 

The Campaigns against Prussia and Russia: Johnston, Chap. X, pp. 130-140; 
Fournier, Chap. XIII, pp. 356-385; Rose, Vol. II, Chaps. XXV and XXVI; Fyffe, 
Chap. VII; Priest, Germany Since ITJ+O, pp. 46-54. 

Tilsit: Fyffe, Chap. VII; Fournier, pp. 385-390; Rose, Vol. II, Chap. XXVII, 
pp. 115-128. 

The Contint:ntal System: Beard, Introduction to the English Historians, pp. 
520-537; Rose, Life of Napoleon I, Vol. II, Chap. XXVI, pp. 95-99; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. IX, pp. 361-389. 

The Attack upon Spain and the Erfurt Interview: Fisher, Napoleon, pp. 
168-180; Johnston, Napoleon, pp. 147-155; Fournier, Napoleon I, pp. 427-453; Rose, 
Vol. II, pp. 146-173. 

The Austrian Campaign of 1809: Fisher, pp. 181-189; Ropes, The First Napo- 
leon, pp. 141-150; Johnston, pp. 157-174; Fournier, pp. 452-492; Rose, Vol. II, 
Chap. XXX, pp. 174-191. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

Napoleon was now at the zenith of his power. He ruled directly over 
an empire that was far larger than the former Kingdom of France. In 
jj J ^ 1809 he annexed what remained of the Papal States in 

at the zenith Italy, together with the incomparable city of Rome, thus 
of his power gj^^jjj^g^ f^j. j-j^g j^jj^g a,t least, the temporal power of the 
Pope. In 1 8 ID he forced his brother Louis to abdicate the kingship of 
Holland, which country was now incorporated in France. He also, as 
has been already stated, extended the empire along the northern coasts of 
Germany from Holland to Liibeck, thus controlling Hamburg, Bremen, 
and the mouths of the important German rivers. Each one of these 
annexations was in pursuance of his policy of the Continental Blockade, 
closing so much more of the coastline of Europe to the commerce of 
England, the remaining enemy which he now expected to humble. He 
, was Emperor of a state that had 130 departments. He 
power out- was also King of Italy, a state in the northeastern part of 

side of ^Yie peninsula. He was Protector of the Confederation of 

France ... 

the Rhine, which included all Germany except Prussia and 

Austria, a confederation which had been enlarged since its formation by 
the addition of Westphalia and Saxony and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 
extending, therefore, clear up to Russia. His brother Joseph was King 
of Spain, his brother Jerome King of WestphaHa, his brother-in-law 
Murat King of Naples. All were mere sateUites of his, receiving and ex- 
ecuting his orders. Russia was his willing ally. Prussia and Austria 
were his allies, the former because forced to be, the latter at first for the 
same reason, and later because she saw an advantage in it. No ruler in 
history had ever dominated so much of Europe. This supreme, incom- 
parable preeminence had been won by his sword, supplemented by 
his remarkable statesmanship and diplomacy. 

England alone remained outside the pale, England alone had not 
been brought to bend the knee to the great conqueror. Even she was 

238 



EUROPE IN 1811 

AT THE HEIGHT OF NAPOLEONS POWER 



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WEAKNESS OF THE NAPOLEONIC SYSTEM 229 

breathing heavily, because the Continental System was inflicting ter- 
rible damage upon her. Factories were being forced to England 
shut down, multitudes of laborers were being thrown out shows signs 
of work or were receiving starvation wages, riots and other 
evidences of unrest and even desperation seemed to indicate that even 
she must soon come to terms. 

But this vast and imposing fabric of power rested upon uncertain 
bases. Built up, story upon story, by this highly imaginative and able 
mind, the architect left out of reckoning or despised the Elements of 

strains and stresses to which it was increasingly subjected, wea^ess m 

•^ the Napo- 

The rapidity with which this colossal structure fell to pieces leonic struc- 

in a few years shows how poorly consolidated it was, how ^^^ 
rickety and precarious its foundations. Even a sHght analysis will re- 
veal numerous and foreboding elements of weakness beneath all this 
pomp and pageantry of power; Erected by the genius of a single man, it 
depended solely upon his life and fortunes — and fortune is notoriously 
fickle. Built up by war, by conquest, it was necessarily environed by the 
hatred of the conquered. With every advance, every annexation, it 
annexed additional sources of discontent. Based on force, it could only 

be maintained by force. There could be and there was in , 

11 1 • r • 11 1 Napoleon's 

all this vast extent of empire no common loyalty to the system 

Emperor. Despotism, and Napoleon's regime was one of ^*sed on 
pitiless despotism, evoked no loyalty, only obedience based 
on fear. Europe has always refused to be dominated by a single nation 
or by a single man. It has run the risk several times in its history 
of passing under such a yoke, but it always in the end succeeded in 
escaping it. Universal dominion is an anachronism. The secret of 
Great Britain's hold upon many of the component parts of her empire 
lies in the fact that she allows them liberty to develop their own life 
in their own way. But such a conception was utterly beyond Napo- 
leon, contrary to all his instincts and convictions. His empire meant 
the negation of liberty in the various countries which he dominated, 
France included. Napoleon's conquests necessarily ranged against him 

this powerful and unconquerable spirit. The more con- 

, . , ... , r , All Europe 

quests, the more enemies, only waiting intently for the mo- waits for the 

ment of liberation, scanning the horizon everywhere for the ^°^^ °^ 
^ . . ^ liberation 

first sign of weakness which to them would be the harbinger 

of hope. This they found in Spain, and in the Austrian campaign in 1809 



230 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

in which the machinery of miUtary conquest had creaked, had worked 
clumsily, had threatened at one moment to break down. 

There was a force in the world which ran directly counter to Napo- 
leon's projects, the principle of nationality. Napoleon despised this 

feeHng, and in the end it was his undoing. He might have 
con^tempt for seen that it had been the strength of France a few years 
the spirit of earlier, that now this spirit had passed beyond the natural 

boundaries and was waking into a new life, was nerving 
to a new vigor, countries like Spain, even Austria and, most conspicu- 
ously, Prussia. 

Prussia after Jena underwent the most serious humihation a nation 
can be called to endure. For several years she was under the iron heel 
Prussia of Napoleon, who kept large armies quartered on her soil, 

after Jena ^rj^g drained her resources, who interfered peremptorily in 
the management of her government, who forbade her to have more than 
42,000 soldiers in her army. But out of the very depths of this national 
degradation came Prussia's salvation. Her noblest spirits were aroused 
to seek the causes of this unexpected and immeasurable national calamity 
and to try to remedy them. From 1808 to 181 2 Prussians, under the very 
scrutiny of Napoleon, who had eyes but did not see, worked passion- 
ately upon the problem of national regeneration. The result surpassed 
beUef. A tremendous national patriotism was aroused by the poets 
and thinkers, the philosophers and teachers, all bending their energies 
to the task of quickening among the youth the spirit of unselfish devotion 
to the fatherland. An electric current of enthusiasm, of idealism, swept 
through the educational centers and through large masses of the people. 
The University of Berlin, founded in 1809, in Prussia's darkest hour, 
was, from the beginning, a dynamic force. It and other universities 
became nurseries of patriotism. 

Prussia underwent regeneration in other ways. Particularly memor- 
able was the work of two statesmen. Stein and Hardenberg. Stein, in 
considering the causes of Prussia's unexampled woes, came to the con- 
clusion that they lay in her defective or harmful social and legal institu- 
Ab liti f tions. The masses of Prussia were serfs, bound to the soil, 
serfdom in their personal liberty gravely restricted, and, as Stein said, 
^1807)* "patriots cannot be made out of serfs." He persuaded the 

King to issue an edict of emancipation, abolishing serfdom. 
The Prussian King, he said, was no longer "the king of slaves, but of 



STEIN'S REFORMS IN PRUSSIA 



231 




forms show 
the influence 
of the French 
Revolution 



free men." Many other reforms were passed abolishing or reducing class 
distinctions and privileges. In all this Stein was largely imitating the 
French Revolutionists who by their epoch-making reforms stein's re- 
had released the energies of the French so that their power 

had been vastly 
augmented. The 
army, too, was reorganized, op- 
portunity was opened to talent, 
as in France, with what magi- 
cal results we have seen. As 
Napoleon forbade that the 
Prussian army should number 
more than 42,000 men, the in- 
genious device was hit upon of 
having men serve with the 
colors only a brief time, long 
enough to learn the essentials 
of the soldier's hfe. Then they 
would pass into ^^^y ^^_ 

the reserve and forms in 

, , 111 Prussia 

others would be 

put rapidly through the same 
training. By this method sev- 
eral times 42,000 men received 
a military training whose effec- 
tiveness was later to be proved. 
Thus Prussia's regeneration 
went on. The new national spirit, wonderfully invigorated, waited with 
impatience for its hour of probation. It should be noted, however, that 
these reforms, which resembled in many respects those accomplished in 
France by the Constituent Assembly and the Convention, and which were 
in fact suggested by them, rested however, on very different principles. 
There was in Prussia no assertion of the Rights of Man, j^^ yielding 
no proclamation of the people as sovereign. In Prussia it by Prussia 
was the king who made the reforms, not the people. The c^atic prin- 
theory of the divine right of the monarch was not touched ciples of 
but was maintained as sacred as ever. There was reform 
in Prussia but no revolution. Prussia took no step toward democracy. 



Baron vom Stein 
From an engraving by Liitzenkirchen. 



232 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

This distinction has colored the whole subsequent history of that king- 
dom and colors it today. "Everything for the people, nothing by the 
people," was evidently the underlying principle in this work of national 
reorganization. Even these reforms were not carried out completely, 
owing to opposition from 
within the kingdom and 
from without. But, 
though incomplete, they 
were very vitalizing. 

Napoleon's policies 
had created other enmi- 
ties in abundance which 
were mining the ground 
beneath him. His treat- 

The Church ^ent of the 
hostile to Pope, whom 
Napoleon ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^ 

prisoner and whose tem- 
poral power he had abol- 
ished by incorporating his 
states, a part in the 
French Empire and a 
part in the Kingdom of 
Italy, made the Catholic 
clergy everywhere hostile, 
and offended the faithful. 
Rome, hitherto the papal capital, was declared the second city of the 
Empire and served as a title for Napoleon's son. All rights of the Pope 
were thus cavaHerly ignored. The vast and subtle influence of the 
Church was of course now directed to the debasement of the man it had 
previously conspicuously favored and exalted. In addition to combat- 
ting the rising tide of nationahty. Napoleon henceforth also had his 
quarrel with the Papacy. 

Into these entanglements he had been brought by the necessities of 
Disastrous his conflict with England, by the Continental Blockade. 
Continental ^^^ ^^ ^as that system that drove him on from one aggres- 
Biockade sion to another, from annexation to annexation. That sys- 

tem^ too, created profound discontent in all the countries of the conti- 




PoPE Pius VII 

From an engraving by Oudaille, after the painting by 

David. 



EFFECTS OF THE CONTINENTAL BLOCKADE 233 

nent, including France itself. By enormously raising the price of such 
necessaries as cotton and sugar and coffee and tea, products of Brit- 
ain's colonies or of the tropical countries with which she traded, they in- 
troduced hardship and irritation into every home. The normal course 
of business was turned inside out and men suddenly found their livelihood 
gone and ruin threatening or already upon them. To get the commod- 
ities to which they were accustomed they smuggled on a large and des- 
perate scale. This led to new and severe regulations and widespread 
harsher punishments, and thus the tyrannical interference economic 
in their private lives made multitudes in every country ^ ^"°^ 
hate the tyranny and long for its overthrow. Widespread economic 
suffering was the inevitable result of the Continental System and did 
more to make Napoleon's rule unpopular throughout Europe than did 
anything else except the enormous waste of life occasioned by the in- 
cessant warfare. That system, too, was the chief cause of the rupture 
of the alliance between Russia and France, in 181 2, a rupture which 
led to appalling disaster for Napoleon and was the beginning of the 
end. The whole stupendous superstructure of Napoleonic statecraft 
and diplomacy fell like a house of cards in the three years 1812, 1813, 
and 1 8 14. 

The Franco-Russian Alliance, concluded so hastily and unexpectedly 
at Tilsit in 1807, lasted nominally nearly five years. It was however 
unpopular from the beginning with certain influential classes j^ie Franco- 
in Russia and its inconveniences became increasingly ap- Russian 
parent. The aristocracy of Russia, a powerful body, hated ^^'^^ 
this alliance with a country which had abolished its own nobility, leav- 
ing its members impoverished by the loss of their lands and privileges. 
There could be no sympathy between the Russian no- j^g unpopa- 
bility, based upon the grinding serfdom of the masses, and larity in 
the country which had swept all traces of feudahsm aside "^^'* 
and proclaimed the equality of men. Moreover, the Russian nobility 
hated the Continental System, as it nearly destroyed the commerce with 
England in wheat, flax, and timber, which was the chief source of their 

wealth. Furthermore, the Czar Alexander I, having ob- 

1 r 1 1 111 1 r ■ . Relations 

tamed some 01 the advantages he had expected from his between 

alliance, was irritated, now that he did not obtain others Napoleon and 

for which he had hoped. He had gained Finland from 

Sweden and the Danubian Principalities from Turkey, but the vague 



234 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

though alluring prospect of a division of the Turkish Empire still remained 
unfulfilled and was, indeed, receding into the limbo of the unhkely. He 
wanted Constantinople, and Napoleon made it clear he could never have 
it. Moreover Alexander was alarmed by Napoleon's schemes with the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a state made out of the Pohsh provinces which 
had been acquired by Prussia and Austria. Alexander had no objection 
to Prussia and Austria losing their Polish provinces, but he himself had 
PoUsh provinces and he dreaded anything that looked like a resurrection 
of the former Kingdom of Poland, any appeal to the Polish national 

feeling. 

But the main cause of Alexander's gradual aHenation from his ally 
was the Continental Blockade. This was working great financial loss 
The alliance to Russia. Moreover its inconveniences were coming 
undermined home to him in Other ways. To enforce the system more 
taentai °° completely in Germany Napoleon seized in 1811 the 
System Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, which belonged to Alexander's 

brother-in-law. 

Thus the alliance was being subjected to a strain it could not stand. 
In 181 2 it snapped, and loud was the report. Napoleon would not allow 
The Franco- any breach of the Continental Blockade if he could prevent 
Russian [^ jjg resolved to force Russia, as he had forced the rest 

breaks down of the continent, to do his bidding. He demanded that she 
in 1812 hve up to her promises and exclude British commerce. 

The answers were evasive, unsatisfactory, and in June, 181 2, Napoleon 
crossed the Niemen with the largest army he ever commanded, over 
Napoleon ^^^^ ^ million men, the "army of twenty nations," as the 

invades Russians called it. About one-half were French. The 

rest were a motley host of Italians, Danes, Croatians, Dal- 
matians, Poles, Dutchmen, Westphalians, Saxons, Bavarians, Wiirtem- 
bergers, and still others. For the first time in his military career 
Napoleon commanded the co5peration of Austria and Prussia, both of 
which were compelled to send contingents. There were 100,000 cavalry 
and a numerous and powerful artillery. He had around him a brilliant 
staff of officers, Murat, Ney, Eugene Beauharnais and others. It seemed 
as if no power on earth could resist such an engine of destruction. 
Napoleon himself spoke of the expedition as the "last act" of the play. 

It was not quite that, but it was a supremely important act, one full 
of surprises. From the very start it was seen that in numbers there is 



THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1812 



235 




tinually 
retreat 



sometimes weakness, not strength. This vast machine speedily com- 
menced to give way beneath its own weight. The army Disorgan- 

had not advanced five days before the commissary depart- ization m 
-^ . the com- 

ment began to break down and bread was, lacking. Horses, missary 

improperly nourished, died by the thousands, thus still department 
further demoralizing the commissariat and imperiling the artillery. The 

Russians adopted the policy of 
not fighting but constantly re- 
treating, luring the ^^^ ^^^_ 
enemy farther and sians con- 
farther into a coun- 
try which they took 
the pains to devastate as they 
retired, leaving no provisions or 
supplies for the invaders, no sta- 
tions for the incapacitated, as 
they burned their villages on 
leaving them. Napoleon, seek- 
ing above everything a battle, in 
which he hoped to crush the 
enemy, was denied the oppor- 
tunity. The Russians had studied the Duke of Wellington's methods 
in Portugal and profited by their study. It was 700 miles from the 
Niemen to Moscow. Napoleon had had no intention of going so far,- but 
the tactics of his enemy forced him steadily to proceed. The Czar had 
announced that he would retire into Asia if necessary, rather than sign 
a peace with his enemy on the sacred soil of Russia. Napoleon hoped 
for a battle at Smolensk but only succeeded in getting a rear-guard action 
and a city in flames. 

This policy of continual retreat, so irritating to the French Emperor, 
was equally irritating to the Russian people, who did not understand the 
reason and who clamored for a change. The Russians therefore took 
up a strong position at Borodino on the route to Moscow. There a battle 
occurred on September 7, 181 2, between the French army of The battle 
125,000 men and the Russian of 100,000. The battle was °^ Borodino 
one of the bloodiest of the whole epoch. The French lost 30,000, the Rus- 
sians 40,000 men. Napoleon's victory was not overwhelming, prob- 
ably because he could not bring himself to throw in the Old Guard. The 



Napoleon's Camp Bed 
Redrawn from a photograph. 



236 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

Russians retreated in good order, leaving the road open to Moscow, 
Napoleon which city Napoleon entered September 14. The army had 
enters experienced terrible hardships aU the way, first over roads 

September soaked by constant rains, then later over roads intensely 
14, 1812 heated by July suns and giving forth suffocating clouds of 

dust. Terrible losses, thousands a day, had characterized the march of 
seven hundred miles from the Niemen to Moscow. 

Napoleon had resolved on the march to Moscow expecting that the 
Russians would consent to peace, once the ancient capital was in danger. 
But no one appeared for that purpose. He found Moscow practically 
The burning deserted, only 15,000 there, out of a population of 250,000. 
of Moscow Moreover the day after his entry fires broke out in various 
parts of the city, probably set by Russians. For four days the fearful 
conflagration raged, consuming a large part of the city. Still Napoleon 
stayed on, week after week, fearing the effect that the news of a retreat 
might produce, and hoping, against hope, that the Czar would sue for 
peace. Finally there was nothing to do, after wasting a month of precious 
time, but to order the retreat. This was a long-drawn-out agony, during 
The retreat which an army of 100,000 men was reduced to a few paltry 
from Moscow thousands, fretted all along the route by which they had 
come by Russian armies and by Cossack guerilla bands, horrified by the 
sight of thousands of their comrades still unburied on the battlefield of 
Borodino, suffering indescribable hardships of hunger and exhaustion 
and finally caught in all the horrors of a fierce Russian winter, clad, as 
many of them were, lightly for a summer campaign. The scenes that 
accompanied this flight and rout were of unutterable woe, culminating 
The crossing ^^ ^^^ hideous tragedy of the crossing of the Beresina, the 
of the bridge breaking down under the wild confusion of men 

fighting to get across, horses frightened, the way blocked by 
carts and wagons, the bridges raked by the fire of the Russian artillery. 
Thousands were left behind, many fell or threw themselves into the icy 
river and were frozen to death. In the river, says one writer, when the 
Russians came up later they saw "awful heaps of drowned soldiers, 
women, and children, emerging above the surface of the waters, and here 
and there rigid in death like statues on their ice-bound horses." A few 
thousand out of all the army finally got out of Russia and across the Nie- 
men. Many could only crawl to the hospitals asking for "the rooms 
where people die." History has few ghastlier pages in all its annals. 



UPRISING OF PRUSSIA AGAINST NAPOLEON 



237 



Napoleon himself left the army in December, and traveled rapidly in- 
cognito to Paris, which he reached on the i8th. "I shall Napoleon 
be back on the Niemen in the spring," was the statement plans a new 
with which he tried to make men think that the lost posi- *^^™P^sn 
tion would be soon recovered. 




Napoleon Returning to France, December, 1812 
Redrawn from a sketch by Faber du Faur. 
Not made on the spot but probably presenting approximately the kind of equipage in 
which Napoleon travelled. He was accompanied by five other persons only. 

He did not quite keep the promise. He did not get as far back again 
as the Niemen. But 1813 saw him battling for his supremacy in Ger- 
many, as 181 2 had seen him battling for it in Russia. The Russian disas- 
ter had sent a thrill of hope through the ranks of his enemies everywhere. 
The colossus might be, indeed appeared to be, falling. Had not the 
auspicious moment arrived for annihilating him? Particularly violent 
was the hatred of the Prussians who had, more than other peoples, felt 
the ruthlessness of his tyranny for the last six years. They trembled with 
eagerness to be let loose and when their King made a treaty of alliance 
with Russia and subsequently made a more direct and per- p ... 
sonal appeal to his people than any Prussian monarch had Russia 
ever made before, they responded enthusiastically. There Na^^ofeon 
was a significant feature about this Treaty of Kalisch with (February 
Russia. Russia was not to lay down her arms against Na- ^ 

poleon until Prussia had recovered an area equal to that which she had 



238 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

possessed before the battle of Jena. But the area was not to be the same, 

for Russia was to keep Prussia's PoUsh provinces, now included in the 

Grand Duchy of Warsaw, whose doom was decreed. Prussia should 

have compensation in northern Germany. 

Could Napoleon rely on the Confederation of the Rhine and on his 

ally Austria? This remained to be seen. A reverse would almost surely 

-- , , cost him the support of the former and the neutrality of 
Napoleon's ^^ -^ 

doubtful the latter. Their loyalty would be proportioned to his 

^^'®^ success. There was with them not the same popular wrath 

as with the Prussians. On the other hand their princes had a keen eye 
for the main chance. Austria surely would use Napoleon's necessities 
for her own advantage. The princes of the Rhenish Confederation wished 
tQ retain the advantages they had won largely through their complaisant 
cooperation with Napoleon during recent years. Austria wished to re- 
cover advantages she had lost, territory, prestige, badly tattered and 
torn by four unsuccessful campaigns. 

Napoleon, working feverishly since the return from Russia, finally 
got an army of over 200,000 men together. But to do this he had to draw 
The cam- upon the youth of France, as never before, calling out re- 
paign of 1813 cruits a year before their time for service was due. A large 

ermany ^^^^ ^^ them were untrained, and had to get their training 
on the march into Germany. The army was weak in cavalry, a decisive 
instrument in following up a victory and clinching it. 

Napoleon was back in central Germany before the Russians and 
Prussians were fully prepared. He defeated them at Ltitzen and at Baut- 
zen in May, 1813, but was unable to follow up his victories because of 
the lack of sufficient cavalry, and the campaign convinced him that he 
could accomplish nothing decisive without reinforcements, 
armistice in He therefore agreed, in an unlucky moment, as it later 

mid-cam- proved, to a six weeks' armistice. During that time he 
paign ^ , ' ° ^ 

did get large reinforcements but his enemies got larger. 

And during that interval the diplomatic intriguing went against him so 
that when the armistice was over Austria had joined the alliance of 
Austria " " Russia, Prussia, and England, against him. He defeated 
the alliance the Austrians at Dresden (August 26-27), his last great 
N^pofeon victory. His subordinates were, however, beaten in vari- 

ous subsidiary engagements and he was driven back upon 
Leipsic. There occurred a decisive three days' battle, the "Battle of 



NAPOLEON LOSES GERMANY 239 

the Nations," as the Germans call it (October 16-18), In point of 

numbers involved this was the greatest battle of the Napoleonic era. 

Over half a million men took part, at most 200,000 under ^^ ^ ^^, 

The battle 
Napoleon, 300,000 under the commanders of the allies, of Leipsic 

Napoleon was disastrously defeated and was sent flying ^^'^*°]l®i', ^®~ 

back across the Rhine with only a small remnant of his 

army. The whole political structure which he had built up in Ger- 




Napoleon's War Horse, "Marengo'' 

many collapsed. The members of the Confederation of the Rhine de- 
serted the falling star, and entered the alhance against him, on the 
guarantee of their possessions by the allies. Jerome fled j.^^ ^^.^^j^ ^j 
from Westphalia and his brief kingdom disappeared, the Napo- 
Meanwhile Wellington, who for years had been aiding the ^°^'^ ^^^ ^™ 
Spaniards, had been successful and was crossing the Pyrenees into 
southern France. The coils were closing in upon the lion, who now 
stood at bay. 

The allies moved on after the retreating French toward the Rhine. 
It had been no part of their original purpose to demand Napoleon's 
abdication. They now, in November, 1813, offered him peace To yield, or 
on the basis of the natural frontiers of France, the Rhine, ^°^ *° yield? 
the Alps, and the Pyrenees. He would not accept but procrastinated, 



240 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

and made counter-propositions. Even in February, 1814, he could have 
retained his throne and the historic boundaries of the old Bourbon 
monarchy, had he been willing to renounce the rest. He daUied with the 
suggestion, secretly hoping for some turn in luck that would spring the 
coaUtion apart and enable him to recover the ground he had lost. In 
thus refusing to recognize defeat, refusing to accept an altered situation, 
he did great harm to France and completed his own downfall. His stiff, 
uncompromising, unyielding temper sealed his doom. He was no longer 
acting as the wise statesman, responsible for the welfare of a great people 
who, by their unstinted sacrifices, had put him under heavy obhgations. 
His was the spirit of the gambler, thinking to win all by a happy turn of 
the cards. He was also will incarnate. With will and luck all might yet 
be retrieved. 

He had said on leaving Germany, " I shall be back in May with 250,000 
men." He did not expect a winter campaign and he felt confident that 
The cam- ^y May he could have another army. The allies, however, 
paign in did not wait for May but at the close of December, 1813 

ranee streamed across the Rhine and invaded France from various 

directions. France, victorious for eighteen years, now experienced what 
she had so often administered to others. The campaign was brief, only 
two months, February and March, 1814. Napoleon was hopelessly out- 
numbered. Yet this has been called the most brilliant of his campaigns. 
Fighting on the defensive and on inner fines, he showed marvellous mas- 
tery of the art of war, striking here, striking there, with great precision 
and swiftness, undaunted, resourceful, tireless. The allies needed every 
bit of their overwhelming superiority in numbers to compass the end of 
their redoubtable antagonist, with his back against the wall and his 
brain working with matchless lucidity and with lightning-like rapidity. 
They thought they could get to his capital in a week. It took them two 
months. However there could be but one end to such a campaign, if 
the allies held together, as they did. On the 30th of March Paris capitu- 
lated and on the following day the Czar Alexander and Frederick WiUiam 
The allies ^^^' ^^^ "^^^^ °^ Prussia, made their formal entry into the 
enter Paris city which the Duke of Brunswick twenty- two years before 
jMarch 31, j^^^ threatened with destruction if it laid sacrilegious hands 
upon the King or Queen. Since that day much water had 
flowed under the bridge, and France and Europe had had a strange, 
eventful history, signifying much. 



THE RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS 241 

The victors would not longer tolerate Napoleon. He was forced to 
abdicate unconditionally. He was allowed to retain his title of Emperor 
but henceforth he was to rule only over Elba, an island nineteen miles 
long and six miles wide, lying off the coast of Tuscany whence his Italian 
ancestors had sailed for Corsica two centuries and a half before he was 
born. Thither he repaired, having said farewell to the Old Guard in 
the courtyard of the palace of Fontainebleau, kissing the flag of France 
made lustrous on a hundred fields. ''Nothing but sobbing was heard in 
all the ranks," wrote one of the soldiers who saw the scene, "and I can 
say that I too shed tears when I saw my Emperor depart.^' 

On the day that Napoleon abdicated, the Senate, so-called guardian 

of the constitution, obsequious and servile to the Emperor in his days 

of fortune, turned to salute the rising sun, and in solemn , . „ „ 

. . Louis XVIII 

session proclaimed Louis XVIII King of France. The allies, becomes 

who had conquered Napoleon and banished him to a petty ^^^ °^ 
island in the Mediterranean, thought they were done with 
him for good and all. But from this complacent self-assurance they were 
destined to a rude awakening. Their own errors and wranglings at the 
Congress of Vienna, whither they repaired in September, 1 814 to divide 
the spoils and determine the future organization of Europe, and the mis- 
takes and indiscretions of the Bourbons whom they restored to rule in 
France, gave Napoleon the opportunity for the most audacious and 
wonderful adventure of his life. 

Louis XVIII, the new king, tried to adapt himseK to the greatly 
altered circumstances of the country to which he now returned in the 
wake of foreign armies after an absence of twenty-two years. He saw 
that he could not be an absolute king as his ancestors had been, and he 
therefore granted a charter to the French, giving them a legislature and 
guaranteeing certain rights which they had won and which he saw could 
not safely be withdrawn. His regime assured much larger liberty than 
France had ever experienced under Napoleon. Nevertheless certain 
attitudes of his and ways of speaking, and the actions of the royalists 
who surrounded him, and several unwise measures of government, soon 
rendered him unpopular and irritated and alarmed the people. He spoke 
of himself as King by the grace of God, thus denying the sov- ^j^g j^^_ 
ereignty of the people; he dated his first document, the Con- takes of the 
stitutional Charter, from "the nineteenth year of my reign," °^^ °°^ 
as if there had never been a Republic and a Napoleonic Empire; he re- 



242 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

stored the white flag and banished the glorious tricolor which had been 
carried in triumph throughout Europe. What was much more serious, 
he offended thousands of Napoleon's army officers by retiring or putting 
them on half pay, many thus being reduced to destitution, and all feeUng 
themselves dishonored. Moreover many former nobles who had early in 
the Revolution emigrated from France and then fought against her re- 
ceived honors and distinctions. Then, in addition, the Roman Catholic 
clergy and the nobles of the court talked loudly and unwisely about 
getting back their lands which had been confiscated and sold to the 
peasants, although both the Concordat of 1802 and the Charter of 1814 
distinctly recognized and ratified these changes and promised that they 
should not be disturbed. The peasants were far and away the most 
^jjg numerous class in France and they were thus early ahenated 

peasantry from the Bourbons by these threats at their most vital in- 

alarmed terest, their property rights, which Napoleon had always 

stoutly maintained. Thus a few months after Napoleon's abdication the 
evils of his reign were forgotten, the terrible cost in human life, the bur- 
densome taxation, the tyranny of it all, and he was looked upon as a 
friend, as a hero to whom the soldiers had owed glory and repute and 
the peasants the secure possession of their farms. In this way a mental 
atmosphere hostile to Louis XVIII, and favorable to Napoleon was 
created by a few months of Bourbon rule. 

Napoleon, penned up in his little island, took note of all this. He 
also heard of the serious dissensions of the allies now that they were 

_. . trying to divide the spoils at Vienna, of their jealousies 

Dissension -^ ° . , . , . , 

among the and animosities, which, m January, 181 5, rose to such a 

^hes at pitch that Austria, France, and England prepared to go to 

war with Prussia and Russia over the allotment of the booty. 
He also knew that they were intriguing at the Congress for his banish- 
ment to some place remote from Europe. 

For ten months he had been in his miniature kingdom. The psycho- 
Napoleon logical moment had come for the most dramatic action of 
resolves to his life. Leaving the island with twelve hundred guards, 
and escaping the vigilance of the British cruisers, he landed 
at Cannes on March i. That night he started on the march to Paris and 
The return on March 20 entered the Tuileries, ruler of France once 
from Elba more. The return from Elba will always remain one of the 
most romantic episodes of history. With a force so small that it could 



THE RETURN FROM ELBA 



243 



easily have been taken prisoner, he had no alternative and no other 
wish than to appeal directly to the confidence of the people. Never was 
there such a magnificent response. All along the route the peasants re- 
ceived him enthusiastically. But his ajipcal wa> ixirlicularly to the 
army, to which he issued 
one of his stirring bulle- 
tins. "Soldiers," it be- 
gan, 'Sve have not been 
conquered. We w^re be- 
trayed. Soldiers! Come 
and range yourselves 
under the banner of your 
chief: his existence de- 
pends wholly on yours: 
his interests, his honor, 
and his glory are your 
interests, your honor, your 
glory. Come! Victory 
will march at double 
quick. The eagle with the 
national colors shall fly 
from steeple to steeple to 
the towers of Notre Dame. 
Then you will be able to 
show your scars with honor: then you will be able to boast of what you 
have done: you will be the liberators of your country." 

Regiment after regiment went over to him. The royalists thought 
he would be arrested at Grenoble where there was a detachment of the 

army under a royaUst commander. Napoleon went straight _, 

•' ■' ^ ° The soldiers 

up to them, threw open his grey coat and said, "Here I flock to 

am: you know me. If there is a soldier among you who Napoleon's 

wishes to shoot his Emperor, let him do it." The soldiers 

flocked over to him, tearing off the white cockades and putting on the 

tricolor, w^hich they had secretly carried in their knapsacks. Opposition 

melted away all along the route. It became a triumphant procession. 

When lies would help, Napoleon told them — among others that it was 

not ambition that brought him back, that "the forty-five best heads of 

the government of Paris have caUed me from Elba and my return is sup- 




The Duke of Wellington 
After the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 



244 



THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 



ported by the three first powers of Europe." He admitted that he had 
made mistakes and assured the people that henceforth he desired only 
Napoleon to follow the paths of peace and Hberty. He had come back 
enters the ^q protect the threatened blessings of the Revolution. The 
(March^20, last part of this intoxicating journey he made in a car- 
1815) j-iage attended by only a half dozen Polish lancers. On 

March 20, Louis XVIII fled from 
the Tuileries. That evening Na- 
poleon entered it. 

"What was the happiest 
period of your life as Emperor?" 
some one asked him at St. He- 
lena. "The march from Cannes 
to Paris," was the quick reply. ' 

His happiness was limited to 
less than the "Hundred Days" 
The "Hun- which this period of 
dred Days " ^g reign is called. 
Attempting to reassure France 
and Europe, he met from the 
former, tired of war, only half- 
hearted support, from the allies 
only remorseless opposition. 
When the diplomats at the Con- 
gress of Vienna heard of his escape 
from Elba they immediately 
ceased their contentions and 
banded themselves together against "this disturber of the peace of 
Europe." They declared him an outlaw and set their armies in motion. 
He saw that he must fight to maintain himself. He resolved to attack 
The cam- before his enemies had time to effect their union. The 
paign in battlefield was in Belgium, as Welhngton with an army of 

English, Dutch, Belgians, and Germans, and, at some dis- 
tance from them, Bliicher with a large army of Prussians, were there. If 
Napoleon could prevent their union, then by defeating each separately, 
he would be in a stronger position when the Russian and Austrian armies 
came on. Perhaps, indeed, they would think it wiser not to come on at 
all but to conclude peace. In Belgium consequently occurred a four 




Blucher 
After a miniature by Miiller. 



ST. HELENA 



245 




Napoleon Embarking on the " Bellerophon " 
Designed and engraved by Baugeau. 




•'j^i.'\ 
"^^A 




The Island of St. Helena 
After the drawing by F. Clementson. 



246 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 

days' campaign culminating on the famous field of Waterloo, twelve 
The Battle niiles south of Brussels. There, on a hot Sunday in June, 
of Waterloo Napoleon was disastrously defeated (June i8, 1815). The 
sun of Austerlitz set forever. The battle began at half past eleven in the 
morning, was characterized by prodigies of valor, by tremendous charges 
of cavalry and infantry back and forth over a sodden field. Wellington 
held his' position hour after hour as wave after wave of French troops 







■■^pfSil^""'' 




m 


■^ 


w ' 


i 


■^ 


4 




mki 


.^^^SM 


WL^ :.. 


.. .<M 


BMbHii 





Long WOOD, Napoleon's House at St. Helena 

rushed up the hill, foaming in and about the solid unflinching British 
squares, then, unable to break them, foamed back again. Wellington 
held on, hoping, looking for the Prussians under Blucher, who, at the 
beginning of the battle, were eleven miles away. They had promised to 
join him, if he accepted battle there, and late in the afternoon they kept 
the promise. Their arrival was decisive, as Napoleon was now greatly 
outnumbered. In the early evening, as the sun was setting', the last 
charge of the French was repulsed. Repulse soon turned into a rout 
and the demoralized army streamed from the field in utter panic, fiercely 
pursued by the Prussians. The Emperor, seeing the utter annihilation 
of his army, sought death, but sought in vain. "I ought to have died 



ST. HELENA 



247 



at Waterloo," he said later, "but the misfortune is that when a man 
seeks death most he cannot find it. Men were killed around me, be- 
fore, behind — everywhere. But there was no bullet for me." He fled 
to Paris, then toward the western coast of France hoping to escape to 
the United States, but the English cruisers off the shore rendered that 
impossible. Making the best of necessity he threw himself upon the 
generosity of the British. "I have come," he announced. Napoleon 
"like Themistocles, to seek the hospitahty of the British banished to 
nation." Instead of receiving it, however, he was sent to 
a rock in the South Atlantic, the island of St. Helena, where he was 
kept under a petty and ignoble surveillance. Six years later he died of 




Napoleon's Tomb in the Invalides, Paris 



cancer of the stomach at the age of fifty-two, leaving an extraordinary 
legend behind him to disturb the future. He was buried under a slab 
that bore neither name nor date and it was twenty years before he was 
borne to his final resting-place under the dome of the Invalides in Paris, 
although in his last will and testament he had said: "My wish is to be 
buried on the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people 
whom I have loved so well." 



248 



REFERENCES 



The Regeneration of Prussia: Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, Chap. VII; 
Henderson, Short History of Germany, Vol. II, pp. 270-286; Rose, The Revolutionary 
and Napoleonic Era, pp. 184-193; Marriott and Robertson, The Evolution of Prussia, 
Chap. VII, pp. 225-239; Schevill, The Making of Modern Germany, pp. 76-82; Priest, 
Germany Since 1740, pp. 55-65. 

The Russian Campaign: Fisher, Napoleon, pp. 189-201; Ropes, The First Napo- 
leon, pp. 158-195; Johnston, Napoleon, pp. 174-187; Fournier, Napoleon I, Chap. 
XVII, pp. 536-579. 

The Campaign in Germany, 1813: Fisher, pp. 201-212; Johnston, pp. 189-197; 
Ropes, pp. 195-217; Fournier, Chap. XVIII, pp. 580-642; Rose, Life of Napoleon I, 
Vol. II, Chap. XXXV, pp. 303-338. 

The Campaign est France, 1814: Johnston, pp. 198-209; Fournier, Chap. XIX, 
pp. 643-680. 

The First Restoration and Elba: Johnston, Chap. XVI, pp. 210-221; Fournier, 
pp. 680-693; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IX, Chap. XVIII, pp. 555-575. 

Waterloo: Fisher, pp. 217-242; Johnston, pp. 222-237; Ropes, pp. 242-295; 
Rose, Vol. II, pp. 417-471; Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Part II, Book I; Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica, Article, Waterloo Campaign. 

Napoleon at St. Helena: Fournier, Chap. XXI, pp. 721-743; Rosebery, Napo- 
leon, the Last Phase, Chaps. IV-VII, XII-XVI; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IX, 
Chap. XXIV, pp. 756-771. 




Tomb of Napoleon at St. Helena 



CHAPTER XII 
THE CONGRESSES 

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA 

The overthrow of Napoleon brought with it one of the most compli- 
cated and difi&cult problems ever presented to statesmen and diplomatists. 
As all the nations of Europe had been profoundly affected j;ggj,ts ^f ^^ 

bv his enterprises, so all were profoundly affected by his overthrow of 

. r ■, -K-r 1 • ' ' ^ -u Napoleon 

fall. The destruction of the Napoleonic regime must be 

followed by the reconstruction of Europe. 

This work of reconstruction was undertaken by the Congress of 
Vienna, one of the most important diplomatic gatherings in the history 
of Europe (September, 1814 — June, 1815). Never before had there 
been seen such an assemblage of celebrities. ''The city of Vienna," 
wrote one of the participants, "presents at this moment an overwhelm- 
ing spectacle; all the most illustrious personages in Europe are repre- 
sented here in the most exalted fashion." There were the emperors of 
Austria and Russia, the kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Den- 
mark, a multitude of lesser princes, and all the diplomats of Europe, of 
whom Metternich and Talleyrand were the most conspicuous. All the 
powers were represented except Turkey. There were representatives of 
the great European banking houses too, " money-changers," Wellington 
called them, and a multitude of adventurers and hangers-on of every 
stripe. 

The main work of the Congress was the distribution of the terri- 
tories thac France had been forced to rehnquish. Certain arrangements 
had been agreed upon by the Allies before going to Vienna, in the First 
Treaty of Paris, May 30, 18 14, and needed now but to be carried out. 
The King of Piedmont, a refugee in his island of Sardinia during Na- 
poleon's reign, was restored to his throne, and Genoa was given him 
that thus the state which borders France on the southeast might be the 
stronger to resist French aggression. Belgium, previously an Austrian 

249 



2 50 THE CONGRESSES 

possession, was annexed to Holland and to the House of Orange, now re- 
stored, that this state might be a barrier in the north. It was understood 
Principle of that, in general, the doctrine of legitimacy should be followed 
legitimacy [^ determining the rearrangement of Europe, that is, the 
principle that princes deprived of their thrones and driven from their 
states by Napoleon should receive them back again at the hands of 
collective Europe, though this principle was ignored whenever it so 
suited the interests of the Great Powers. 

The Allies who had, after immense effort and sacrifice, overthrown 
Napoleon, felt that they should have their reward. The most powerful 
Demands of monarch at Vienna was Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, 
Russia ^i^Q^ gygj. since Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, 

had loomed large as a liberator of Europe. He now demanded that the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, whose government fell with Napoleon, be 
given to him. This state had been created out of Polish territories which 
Prussia and Austria had seized in the partitions of that country at the 
close of the eighteenth century. Alexander wished to unite them with a 
part of Poland that had fallen to Russia, thus largely to restore the 
old Polish kingdom and nationality to which he intended to give a 
parliament and a constitution. There was to be no incorporation of the 
restored kingdom in Russia, but the Russian Emperor was to be King of 
Poland. The union was to be merely personal. 

Prussia was willing to give up her Polish provinces if Only she could 
be indemnified elsewhere. She therefore fixed her attention upon the 
Demands of rich Kingdom of Saxony to the south, with the important 
Prussia cities of Dresden and Leipsic, as her compensation. To be 

sure there was a King of Saxony, and the doctrine of legitimacy would 
seem clearly to apply to him. But he had been faithful to his treaty 
obligations with Napoleon down to the battle of Leipsic, and thus, said 
Prussia, he had been a traitor to Germany, and his state was lawful 
prize. 

Russia and Prussia supported each other's claims but Austria and 
England and France opposed them stoutly, in the end even agreeing 
to go to war to prevent this aggrandizement of the two northern nations. 
It was this dissension among those who had conquered him that caused 
Napoleon to think that the opportunity was favorable for his return 
from Elba. But, however jealous the Allies were of each other, they, 
one and all, hated Napoleon and were firmly resolved to be rid of him. 



THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA 



251 




2^2 THE CONGRESSES 

They had no desire for more war and consequently quickly compromised 
their differences. The final decision was that Russia should receive the 
lion's share of the Duchy of Warsaw, Prussia retaining only the prov- 
ince of Posen, and Cracow being erected into a free city; that the King 
of Saxony should be restored to his throne; that he should retain the 
important cities of Dresden and Leipsic, but should cede to Prussia 
about two-fifths of his kingdom; that, as further compensation, Prussia 
should receive extensive territories on both banks of the Rhine. 
Prussia also acquired Pomerania from Sweden, thus rounding out her 
coast line on the Baltic. 

Russia emerged from the Congress with a goodly number of addi- 
tions. She retained Finland, conquered from Sweden during the late 
Russian ac- wars, and Bessarabia, wrested from the Turks; also Turk- 
quisitions jg^ territories in the southeast. But, most important of all, 
she had now succeeded in gaining most of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. 
Russia now extended farther westward into Europe than ever, and could 
henceforth speak with greater weight in European affairs. 

Austria recovered her Polish possessions and received, as compensa- 
tion for the Netherlands, northern Italy, to be henceforth known as the 
Austrian ac- Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, comprising the larger and 
quisitions richer part of the Po valley. She also recovered the lUyr- 
ian provinces along the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Thus, after 
twenty years of war, almost uninterruptedly disastrous, she emerged 
with considerable accessions of strength, and with a population larger 
by four or five millions than she had possessed in 1792. She had ob- 
tained, in lieu of remote and unprofitable possessions, territories which 
augmented her power in central Europe, the immediate annexation of 
a part of Italy, and indirect control over the other Italian states. 

England, the most persistent enemy of Napoleon, the builder of 
repeated coalitions, the pay-mistress of the Allies for many years, found 
English ac- her compensation in additions to her colonial empire. She 
quisitions retained much that she had conquered from France or 
from the allies or dependencies of France, particularly Holland. She 
occupied Helgoland in the North Sea, Malta and the Ionian Islands in 
the Mediterranean; Cape Colony in South Africa; Ceylon, and other 
islands. It was partially in view of her colonial losses that Holland 
was indemnified by the annexation of Belgium, as has been already 
stated. 



THE WORK OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA 253 

Another question of great importance, decided at Vienna, was the 
disposition of Italy. The general principle of action had already been 
agreed upon, that Austria should receive compensation here The future 
for the Netherlands, and that the old dynasties should be °^ ^^y 
restored. Austrian interests determined the territorial arrangements. 
Austria took possession, as has been said, of the richest and, in a mili- 
tary sense, the strongest provinces, Lombardy and Venetia, from which 
position she could easily dominate the peninsula, especially as the Duchy 
of Parma was given to Marie Louise, wife of Napoleon, and as princes 
connected with the Austrian imperial family were restored to their 
thrones in Modena and Tuscany. The Papal States were also reestab- 
lished. 

No union or federation of these states was effected. It was Met- 
ternich's desire that Italy should simply be a collection of independent 
states, should be only a ''geographical expression." The 
doctrine of legitimacy, appealed to for the restoration of "geograph- 
dynasties, was ignored by this congress of princes in the *":^ expres- 
case of republics. "Republics are no longer fashionable," 
said the Czar to a Genoese deputation which came to protest against 
this arrangement. Genoa and Venice were handed over to others. 
Romiliy mentioned in the English House of Commons that the Corin- 
thian horses which Napoleon had brought from St. Mark's to Paris were 
restored to the Venetians, but that it was certainly a strange act of 
justice " to give them back their statues, but not to restore to them 
those far more valuable possessions, their territory and their republic," 
which had been wrested from them at the same time. 

Other changes in the map of Europe, now made or ratified, were 
these: Norway was taken from Denmark and joined with Sweden; 
Switzerland was increased by the addition of three cantons which had 
recently been incorporated in France, thus making twenty-two cantons 
in all. The frontiers of Spain and Portugal were left untouched. 

Such were the territorial readjustments decreed by the Congress 
of Vienna, which were destined to endure, with slight changes, for 
nearly fifty years. It is impossible to discover in these criticism 
negotiations the operation of any lofty principle. Self- of the 
interest is the key to this welter of bargains and agree- ^°°^®^^ 
ments. Not that these titled brokers neglected to attempt to convince 
Europe of the nobility of their endeavors. Great phrases, such as " the 



2 54 THE CONGRESSES 

reconstruction of the social order," "the regeneration of the political 
system of Europe," a "durable peace based upon a just division of 
power" were used by the diplomats of Vienna in order to impress the 
peoples of Europe, and to lend an air of dignity and elevation to their 
august assemblage, but the peoples were not deceived. They witnessed 
the unedifying scramble of the' conquerors for the spoils of victory. 
They saw the monarchs of Europe, who for years had been denouncing 
Napoleon for not respecting the rights of peoples, acting precisely in 
the same way, whenever it suited their pleasure. • 

The Congress of Vienna was a congress of aristocrats, to whom the 
ideas of nationality and democracy as proclaimed by the French Revo- 
Character of lution were incomprehensible or loathsome. The rulers 
the Congress rearranged Europe according to their own desires, disposing 

lenna ^^ -^ ^^ -^ -^ ^^rQXQ their own personal property, ignoring the 
sentiment of nationality, which had lately been so wonderfully aroused, 
indifferent to the wishes of the people. The people were treated as 
children incapable of thought in such high matters as their own destiny, 
with no right, because of their inexperience and immaturity, to be 
heard. The world was to be held in tutelage as always hitherto by 
The principle ™^^ ^^'^^ Considered themselves appointed to that end, the 
of national- anointed of the Lord. They did not strive so to draw 

1 y Ignore ^j^^ boundaries of the different states as to satisfy the as- 
pirations of the various peoples and thus to lay the foundations of a 
permanent peace. They aimed rather in their adjustments to create 
a so-called "balance of power." Theirs could be no "settlement" be- 
cause they ignored the factors that alone would make the settlement 
permanent. The history of Europe from 1815 to the present day has 
been the attempt to undo this cardinal error of the Congress of Vienna. 

In addition to the Treaties of Vienna the allies signed in 181 5 two 
other dociunents of great significance in the future history of Europe, 
The Holy that establishing the so-called Holy Alliance, and that es- 
AUiance tablishing the Quadruple Alliance. The former proceeded 

from the initiative of Alexander I, of Russia, whose mood was now 
deeply rehgious under the influence of the tremendous events of recent 
years and the fall of Napoleon, which to his mind seemed the swift 
verdict of a higher power in human destinies. He himself had been 
freely praised as the White Angel, in contrast to the fallen Black Angel, 
and he had been called the Universal Saviour. He now submitted a 



THE HOLY ALLIANCE 255 

document to his immediate allies, Prussia and Austria, which was fa- 
mous for a generation, and which gave the popular name to the system 
of repression which was for many years followed by the powers that 
had conquered in the late campaign. The document stated that it was 
the intention of the powers henceforth to be guided, both in their domes- 
tic and foreign policies, solely by the precepts of the Christian religion. 
The rulers announced that they would regard each other as brothers 
and their subjects as their children, and they promised to aid each other 
on all occasions and in all places. All those powers which might wish 
to make avowal of these " sacred principles shall be received into, the 
Holy Alliance with as much cordiality as affection." The other powers, 
thus asked by the Emperor of Russia to express their approval of Chris- 
tian principles, did so, preserving what dignity they could in playing 
what most of them considered a farce of questionable taste. For, know- 
ing the principles that had actually governed the Czar and the other 
rulers at the Congress of Vienna, they did not consider them particularly 
biblical or as likely to inaugurate a new and idyllic diplomacy in 
Europe. As a matter of fact no state even made any attempt to act 
in accordance with the principles so highly approved. The only im- 
portant thing about the Holy Alliance was its name which was, in the 
opinion of all liberals, too good to be lost, so ironically did it contrast 
with what was known of the characters and policies of the rulers of 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, the "Holy Allies." 

The other document signed in 18 15, by Russia, Prussia, Austria, and 
England, established a Quadruple Alliance providing that these powers 
should hold congresses from time to time for the purpose The 
of considering their common interests and the needs of Quadruple 
Europe. The congresses that were held during the next (November 
few years in accordance with this agreement were con- ^^' ^^^^^ 
verted into engines of oppression everywhere largely through the 
influence of Prince Metternich, Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, 
whose influence upon their deliberations was decisive. 

Metternich appeared to the generation that lived between 181 5 and 
1848 as the most commanding personality of Europe, whose importance 
is shown in the phrases, " Era of Metternich," " System of Metternich, 
Metternich." He was the central figure not only in Aus- 1773-1859 
trian and German politics, but in European diplomacy. He was the 
most famous statesman Austria produced in the nineteenth century. 



256 



THE CONGRESSES 



Metternich's 
self-esteem 



A man of high rank, wealthy, polished, blending social accomplishments 
with literary and scientific pretensions, his foible was omniscience. He 
was the prince of diplomatists, thoroughly at ease amid all the intrigu- 
ing of European poHtics. His egotism was Olympian. He spoke of 

himself as 

being born 
" to prop up the decaying 
structure" of European 
society. He felt the 
world resting on his 
shoulders. " My position 
has this peculiarity," he 
says, " that all eyes, all 
expectations are directed 
to precisely that point 
where I happen to be." 
He asks the question: 
"why, among so many 
million men, must I be 
the one to think when 
others do not think, to 
act when others do not 
act, and to write because 
others know not how?" 
He himself admitted at 
the end of a long career 
that he had "never 
strayed from the path of 
eternal law," that his 
mind had "never enter- 
tained error." He felt and said that he would leave a void when he 
disappeared. 

On analysis, however, his thinking appears singularly negative. It 
consisted of his execration of the French Revolution. His life-long role 
Metternich's ^^^ ^^^^ °^ incessant opposition to everything compre- 
historicai hended in the word. He denounced it in rabid and lurid 

phrases. It was "the. disease which must be cured, the 
volcano which must be extinguished, the gangrene which must be 




Metternich 
After the painting by Sir Tliomas Lawrence. 



METTERNICH'S OPINIONS 257 

burned out with the hot iron, the hydra with jaws open to swallow up 
the social order." He believed in absolute monarchy, and considered 
himself " God's lieutenant" in supporting it. He hated parliaments and 
representative systems of government. All this talk of liberty, equality, 
constitutions, he regarded as pestilential, the odious chatter of revolu- 
tionary French minds. He defined himself as a man of the status quo. 
Keep things just as they are, all innovation is madness, such was the con- 
stant burden of his song. He was the convinced and resourceful op- 
ponent of all struggles for national independence, of all aspirations for 
self-government. Democracy could only " change daylight into darkest 
night." 

Napoleon once said of Metternich that "he mistook intrigue for 
statesmanship." The acuteness of this characterization will be seen as 
we w^atch him at work upon his "system" in Austria, Germany, Italy, 
and Spain in the decade following the overthrow of the French Emperor. 

REACTION IN EUROPE AFTER 18 15 

AUSTRIA 

"The battle of Waterloo," remarked Napoleon at St. Helena, "will 
be as dangerous to the liberties of Europe as the battle of Philippi was 
dangerous to the liberties of Rome." Napoleon was not exactly an au- 
thority on liberty, but he did know the difference between enlightened 
despotism and unenlightened. His was, in the main, of the former 
sort. The kind that succeeded his in central Europe could not be so 
characterized. The style was set by Austria, the leading state on the 
Continent from 1815 to 1848. Austria was not a single nation, like 
France, but was composed of many races. To the west 
were the Austrian duchies, chiefly German, the ancient unity in the 
possessions of the House of Hapsburg; to the north Bohe- Austrian 
mia, an ancient kingdom acquired by the Hapsburgs in 
1526; to the east the Kingdom of Hungary, occupying the immense 
plain of the middle Danube; to the south the Kingdom of Lombardy- 
Venetia, purely Italian. The two leading races were the Germans, 
forming the body of the population in the duchies, and the Magyars, 
originally an Asiatic folk, encamped in the Danube valley since the 
ninth century and forming the dominant people in Hungary. There were 
many branches of the Slavic race in both Austria and Hungary. There 
were also Roumanians, a different people still, in eastern Hungary. 



258 



THE CONGRESSES 



To rule so conglomerate a realm of twenty-eight or twenty-nine 
million people was a difficult task. This was the first problem 
of Francis I (1792-183 5) and Metternich. Their policy was to resist 
all demands for reform, and to keep things as they were, to make 
the world stand still. The people were sharply divided into classes, 

^ each resting on a different basis. Of these the nobility 

land of the occupied a highly privileged position. They enjoyed free- 
Old Regime ^^^ i^Qj^ compulsory military service, large exemptions 
from taxation, a monopoly of the best offices in the state. They pos- 
sessed a large part of the land, from which in many cases they drew 
enormous revenues. On the other hand the condition of the peasants, 
who formed the immense mass of the people, was deplorable in the ex- 
treme. They were even refused the right to purchase relief from the 
heaviest burdens. Absolutism in government, feudalism in society, 
special privileges for the favored few, oppression and misery for the 
masses, such was the condition of Austria in 181 5. 

It was the fLxed purpose of the government to maintain things as 
they were and it succeeded largely for thirty-three years, during the reign i 
of Francis I, till 1835, and of his successor, Ferdinand I (1S35-48). 
The police During all this period Metternich was the chief minister, 
system jjjg system, at war with human nature, at war with the 

modern spirit, rested upon a meddlesome police, upon elaborate espio- 
nage, upon a vigilant censorship of ideas. Censorship was applied to 
theaters, newspapers, books. The frontiers were guarded that foreign 
books of a liberal character might not slip in to corrupt. Political 
science and history practically disappeared as serious studies. Spies 
were everywhere, in government offices, in places of amusement, in 
educational institutions. Particularly did this government fear the 
universities, because it feared ideas. Professors and students were 
subjected to humiliating regulations. Spies attended lectures. The 
government insisted on having a complete list of the books that each 
professor took out of the university library. Text-books were prescribed. 
Students might not study abroad, nor might they have societies of their 
own. Austrians might not travel to foreign countries without the per- 
mission of the government, which was rarely given. Austria was sealed 
as nearly hermetically as possible against the liberal thought of Europe. 
Intellectual stagnation was the price paid. A system like this needed 
careful bolstering at every moment and at every point. The best pro- 



Longitiutf Sast 20 frnm Oreennit/i 




CZI] Czecff^ ^ CZIl Saio-Cwa/s 
SloiaAs I 1 7/a/m/sMa^mcs 

I 1 -^-^^ I- .. I Rtumanians 

I 1 SiUhenums I I Mag/yars. 



THE METTERNICH SYSTEM 259 

tection for the Austrian system was to extend it to other countries. 

Having firmly established it at home, Metternich labored Application of 

with great skill and temporary success to apply it in sur- theMettemich 

® . . system in 

rounding countries, in Germany through the Diet and the other 

state governments, in Italy through interventions and countries 
treaties, binding Italian states not to follow policies opposed to the 
Austrian, and in general by bringing about a close accord of the Great 
Powers on this illiberal basis. 

We shall now trace the application of this conception of govern- 
ment in other countries. This will serve among other things to show 
the dominant position of the Austrian Empire in Europe from 18 15 to 
1848. Vienna, the seat of rigid conservatism, was now the center of 
European affairs, as Paris, the home of revolution, had been for so long. 

GERMANY 

One of the important problems presented to the Congress of Vienna 
concerned the future organization of Germany. The Holy Roman 
Empire had disappeared in 1806 at the hands of Napoleon. Germany a 
The Confederation of the Rhine, which he had created to loose con- 
take its place, had disappeared with its creator. Something ^ ^^^ °° 
must evidently be put in its place. The outcome of the deliberations 
was the establishment of the German Confederation which was the 
government of Germany from 1815 to 1866. The Confederation con- 
sisted of thirty-eight states. The central organ of the government was 
to be a Diet, meeting at Frankfort. This was to consist, not of repre- 
sentatives chosen by the people, but of delegates appointed 
by the different sovereigns and serving during their pleasure. 
They were to be, not deputies empowered to decide questions, but 
simply diplomatic representatives, voting as their princes might direct. 
Austria was always to have the presidency of this body. The method 
of procedure within the Diet was complicated and exceedingly cum- 
brous, making action difiicult, delay and obstruction easy. The Con- 
federation did not constitute a real nation but only a loose league of 
independent states. The states agreed not to make war upon each 
other and that was about the only serious obligation they assumed. 
The federal government was remarkable mainly for its defects. The 
legislature, or Diet of Frankfort, was most inefficient. In all important 
legislation each state had practically a veto. In addition there was 



26o THE CONGRESSES 

really no executive, and the judicial branch was extremely rudimentary. 
It was left to the rulers of the separate states to carry out the de- 
cisions of the Diet. As a matter of fact they executed them only when 
they wished to. 

The Confederation was a union of princes, not of peoples. It was 
created because each prince was jealous of every other prince, and was 

far more concerned with the preservation of his own power 
eration°a ' than with the prosperity of Germany. Now the spirit of 
union of nationality had been tremendously aroused by the struggles 

pnnces ^^.^^^ Napoleon. All the more progressive spirits felt that 

the first need of Germany was unity and a strong national government. 
But German, unity was, according to Metternich, an " infamous object" 
and Metternich was supported by the selfishness of the German rulers, 
not one of whom was willing to surrender any particle of his authority. 
Intense was the indignation of all Liberals at what they called this " great 
deception" of Vienna. 

The Liberals experienced another disappointment too. As they de- 
sired unity, they also desired liberty. They wished a constitution for 
The demand ^^^^ °^® °^ ^^^ thirty-eight States; they wished a parlia- 
for consti- ment in each; they wished to have the reign of absolutism 

brought to a close. It had seemed at one moment as if 
this might be achieved. In appealing to his people to rally around him 
in the war against Napoleon, the King of Prussia had very recently 
promised his people a constitution and had urged at the Congress of 
Vienna that the Federal Act should require every member of the Confed- 
eration to grant a representative constitution to his subjects within a 
year. Metternich, even more opposed to free political institutions than 
Metternich's ^^ ^ Strong central government, succeeded in thwarting the 
successful reformers at this .point also, by having this explicit and 

mandatory declaration made vague and lifeless. Thus the 
famous Article XIII .of the Federal Act which established the Confed- 
eration was made to read: "A constitution based upon the system of 
estates will be established in all the states of the union." The character 
of the promised constitution was not sketched; and the time limit was 
omitted. A journalist was justified in saying that all that was 
guaranteed to the German people was an " unlimited right of expecta- 
tion." The future was to show the vanity even of expectation, the 
hollowness of even so mild a promise. The Liberals had desired some- 




52 



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ASBREVJATIONS 



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WIDESPREAD DISCONTENT IN GERMANY 261 

thing more substantial than hope. Austria and Prussia, the two lead- 
ing states, governing the great mass of the German people, never 
executed this provision. Nor did many of the smaller states. A few 
of the princes, however, did, notably the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar^ 
the patron of Goethe and Schiller. 

Metternich's programme was to secure the prevalence in Germany 
of the same principles that prevailed in Austria. He believed that to 
allow the people to participate in government was to flood the state 
with ignorance, passion, envy, and all uncharitableness : that any con- 
cessions to democracy would lead straight to anarchy. His purpose was 
to instill this idea into the minds of those sovereigns who did not have 
it; also to arouse timid rulers, like the King of Prussia, to such a 
pitch of fear, that they would actively cooperate with him in his efforts 
to stamp out liberal ideas wherever they might appear. Certain inci- 
dents of the day gave him favorable occasions to apply the system of 
repression which in his opinion was the only sure cure for the ills of 
this world. 

The years immediately succeeding 181 5 were years of restlessness 
and discontent. The disappointment of Liberals was intense, their 
criticism bitter, when they saw their hopes turned to ashes. Digappoint- 
The chief seat of disaffection was found in the universities ment of Ger- 
and in newspapers edited by university men. Student socie- 
ties kept alive the exalted feelings for unity aroused by the wars with 
Napoleon, and were ardently patriotic and democratic in sentiment. 
In the year 181 7 a large number of delegates from these student socie- 
ties in the various universities held a patriotic festival at the Wartburg, 
a castle famous in connection with the career of Martin Luther. Their 
festival was religious as well as patriotic and was a com- -j-j^g 
memoration of the battle of Leipsic and of the Reforma- Wartburg 
tion. Its members partook of the Lord's Supper together 
and listened to impassioned speeches commemorating the great moments 
in German history. They showed their enthusiastic admiration of the 
Duke of Weimar. In the evening they built a bonfire and threw into 
it various symbols of the hated reaction, notably an illiberal pamphlet 
of which the King of Prussia had expressed his approval. Such was the 
Wartburg Festival, which Metternich described in gloomy The murder 
language to the rulers of Germany. Somewhat later a stu- °^ Kotzebue 
dent killed a journalist and playwright, Kotzebue, who was hated in 



262 THE CONGRESSES 

university circles as a Russian spy. These and other occurrences played 
perfectly into the hands of Metternich who was seeking the means of 
establishing reaction in Germany as it had been established in Austria. 
He secured the passage by the frightened princes of the Carlsbad Decrees 
(1819). These decrees were rushed through the Diet by illegal and 
The Carlsbad violent methods. By them Metternich became the con- 
Decrees queror of the Confederation. They were the work of 
Austria, seconded by Prussia. They signified in German history the sup- 
pression of liberty for a generation. They really determined the political 
system of Germany until 1848. They provided for a vigorous censorship 
of the press, and subjected the professors and students of the univer- 
sities to a close government supervision. All teachers who should prop- 
agate "harmful doctrines," that is, who should in any way criticise 
Metternich 's ideas of government, should be removed from their posi- 
tions and once so removed could not be appointed to any other posi- 
tions in Germany. The student societies were suppressed. Any student 
expelled from one university was not to be admitted into any other. 
By these provisions it was expected that the entire academic commu- 
nity, professors and students, would be reduced to silence. Another 
provision was directed against the establishment of any further con- 
stitutions of a popular character. Thus free parliaments, freedom of the 
press, freedom of teaching, and free speech were outlawed. 

The Carlsbad Decrees represent an important turning-point in 
the history of Central Europe. They signalized the dominance of 

„ ^. Metternich in Germany as well as in Austria. Prussia 

Reaction . ■' 

the order now docilely followed Austrian leadership, abandoning all 
^ Germany ^^^^^^^ policies. The King, Frederick William III, had, 
in his hour of need, promised a constitution to Prussia. 
He never kept this promise. On the other hand he inaugurated a 
peculiarly odious persecution of all Liberals, which was marked by 
many acts as inane as they were cruel. Prussia entered upon a dull, 
drab period of oppression. 

Let us now see how the same ideas were applied in other countries. 

SPAIN 

In 1808 Napoleon had, as we have seen, seized the crown of Spain, 
and until 1814 had kept the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, virtually a 
prisoner in France, placing his own brother Joseph on the vacant throne. 



REACTION AND REVOLUTION IN SPAIN 263 

The Spaniards rose against the usurper and for years carried on a vigor- 
ous guerilla warfare, aided by the EngUsh, and ending finally in success. 
As their King was in the hands of the enemy they proceeded in his name 
to frame a government. Being liberal-minded they drew up a consti- 
tution, the famous Constitution of 1812, which was closely modeled on 
the French Constitution of 1791. It asserted the sovereignty of the people, 
thus discarding the rival theory of the monarchy by divine right which 
had hitherto been the accepted basis of the Spanish state. Ferdinand 
This democratic document however did not have long to Vll (1814- 

1833) 

live, as Ferdinand, on his return to Spain after the over- 
throw of Napoleon, immediately suppressed it and embarked upon a 
policy of angry reaction. The press was gagged. Books of a liberal 
character were destroyed wherever found, and particularly all copies 
of the constitution. Thousands of political prisoners were severely 
punished. 

Vigorous and efficient in stamping out all liberal ideas, the govern- 
ment of Ferdinand was indolent and incompetent in other matters. 
Spain, a country of about eleven million people, was wretch- inefficiency 
edly poor and ignorant. The government, however, made of the gov- 
no attempt to improve conditions. Moreover it failed to 
discharge the most fundamental duty of any government, that is, to 
preserve the integrity of the empire. The Spanish colonies in America 
had been for several years in revolt against the mother country and the 
government had made no serious efiforts to put down the rebellion. 

Such conditions, of course, aroused great discontent. The army 
particularly was angry at the treatment it had received and became a 
breeding place of conspiracies. A military uprising occurred Revolution 
in 1820 which swept everything before it and which forced °^ ^^^° 
the King to restore the Constitution of 181 2 and to promise henceforth 
to govern in accordance with its provisions. The text of the constitu- 
tion was posted in every city, and parish priests were ordered to 
expound it to their congregations. 

Thus revolution had triumphed again, and only five years after 
Waterloo. An absolute monarchy, based on divine right, had been 
changed into a constitutional monarchy based on the sovereignty of 
the people. Would the example be followed elsewhere? Would the 
Holy Alliance look on in silence? Had the revolutionary spirit been so 
carefully smothered in Austria, Germany, and France, only to blaze 



264 THE CONGRESSES 

forth in outlying sections of Europe? Answers to these questions were 
quickly forthcoming. 

ITAL"^ 

Italy, like other countries, had been profoundly affected by the 
liberal ideas of the French Revolution, and particularly by the restless 
jj J , activity of Napoleon who, from the beginning of his career 
activity in to its close, had drawn her within the range of his policies 
^*^'^ and manipulations. At first the Italians had hailed him as 

the looked-for deliverer from oppression, a feeling that gave way to 
hatred when the youthful conqueror set up, in the place of the despotism 
overthrown, a despotism more severe, although at the same time more 
intelligent. For many years the fate of Italy was determined by his will. 
He did much to improve the laws, much to stimulate industry, much 
The awaken- to break up musty old habits and conventions. New ideas, 
iug of Italy political ■ and social, penetrated the peninsula with him. 
He shook the Italians out of their somnolence and imparted to them 
an energy they had not known for centuries. But he offended them by 
his heavy exactions of men and money for his constant wars, by his shame- 
less robbery of their works of art, and by his treatment of the Pope. 

Then he fell, and the Congress of Vienna restored most of the old 
states which had existed before he first came into Italy. There were 
The ten henceforth ten of them: Piedmont, Lombardy-Venetia, 

Italian Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, the Papal States, Naples, 

Monaco, and San Marino. Genoa and Venice, until re- 
cently independent republics, were not restored, as republics were not 
fashionable." The one was given to Piedmont, the other to Austria. 

These states were too small to be self-sufficient, and as a result Italy 
was for nearly fifty years the sport of foreign powers, dependent, hence- 
forth, not upon France but upon Austria. This is the cardinal fact in 
the situation and is an evidence, as it is a partial cause, of the com- 
manding position of the Austrian monarchy after the fall of Napoleon. 
The domi- Austria was given outright the richest part of the Po valley 
nance of as a Lombardo- Venetian kingdom. Austrian princes or 

Italy*"* "* princesses ruled over the duchies of Modena, Parma, and 
Tuscany, and were easily brought into the Austrian system. 
Thus was Austria the master of northern Italy; master of southern Italy, 
too, for Ferdinand, King of Naples, made an offensive and defensive 



REACTION IN ITALY 265 

treaty with Austria, pledging himself to make no separate alliances and 
to grant no hberties to his subjects beyond those which obtained in 
Lombardy and Venetia. Naples was thus but a satellite in 'the great 
Austrian system. The King of Piedmont and the Pope were the only 
Italian princes at all likely to 'be intractable. And Austria's strength 
in comparison with theirs was that of a giant compared with that of 
pygmies. 

Thus the restoration was accomplished. Italy became again a col- 
lection of small states, largely under the dominance of Austria. Each 
of the restored princes was an absolute monarch. In none of the states 
was there a parliament. Italy had neither unity nor constitutional 
forms, nor any semblance of popular participation in the government. 
The use which the restored princes made of their imfettered liberty of 
action was significant. 

Hating the French, they undertook to extinguish all reminders of 
that odious people. They abohshed all constitutions and many laws and 
institutions of French origin. Vaccination and gas illu- Universal 
mination were forbidden for the simple reason that the reaction 
French had introduced them. In Piedmont French plants in the 
Botanic Gardens of Turin were torn up, French furniture in the royal 
palace was destroyed in response to this vigorous and infantile emotion. 
In every one of the states there was distinct retrogression and the 
Italians lost ground all along the line ^politically, industrially, socially. 
In general the Inquisition was restored. Education was handed over 
to the clergy. The course of studies was carefully purged of every- 
thing that might be dangerous. The police paid particular attention 
to " the class called thinkers." 

Thus Italy was ruled by petty despots and in a petty spirit. More- 
over most of the princes took their cue from Austria, the nature of 
whose policies we have already examined. The natural re- widespread 
suit of such conditions was deep and widespread discontent; discontent 
AU the progressive elements of the population which believed in free- 
dom in education, in religion, in business were disaffected, as were also 
many who were dismissed from the army or from governmental posi- 
tions on the ground that they had been contaminated with the previous 
French regime. The discontented joined the Carbonari, a secret society, 
and bided their time. 

That time came when the news reached Italy of the successful and 



266 THE CONGRESSES 

bloodless Spanish Revolution of 1820. In Naples a military insurrection 
Th R lu- broke out. The revolutionists demanded the Spanish Con- 
tion of 1820 stitution of 181 2, not because they knew much about it 
in Naples ^^^^ ^j^^^^ -j. ^^^ ^^^ democratic and possessed the ad- 
vantage of being ready-made. The -Kong immediately yielded and 
the constitution was proclaimed. 

THE CONGRESSES 

Thus in 1820 the Revolution, so hateful to the diplomats of 18 15, 
had resumed the offensive. Spain and Naples had overthrown the 
regime that had been in force five years, and had adopted constitutions 
that were thoroughly saturated with the principles of Revolutionary 
France. There had likewise been a revolution against the established 
regime in Portugal. There was shortly to be one in Piedmont. 

Metternich, the most influential personage in Europe, who felt the 
world resting on his shoulders, had very clear views as to the require- 
ments of the situation that had arisen. Anything that 
prepareTo^^ threatened the peace of Europe was a very proper thing 
suppress for a European congress to discuss. A revolution in one 

lutions ' country may encourage a revolution in another and thus 
the world, set in order by the Congress of Vienna, may 
soon find itself in conflagration once more, the established order every- 
where threatened. Metternich recommended as a sure cure the doctrine 

^^ ^ ^. of the "right of intervention," a doctrine new in inter- 
The doctrine . ° . ' 

of the right national law but which he succeeded in having applied for 
of interven- several years. The doctrine was that, as modern Europe 
was based upon opposition to revolution, the powers had 
the right and were in duty bound to intervene to put down revolution, 
not only in their own states respectively, but in any state of Europe, 
against the will of the people of that state, even against the will of the 
sovereign of that state, in the interests of the established monarch- 
ical order. A change of government within a given state was not a 
domestic but an international affair. 

Metternich won the support of Russia, Prussia, and Austria for this 
doctrine, which virtually denied the independence of every nation, the 
right of the people of any state to change their form of government to 
any other model than that of absolute monarchy. These were the 
original "Holy Allies," aU absolute monarchs, and it was their steady, 



REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY 267 

undeviating support of the ominous principle which made the Holy 
Alliance a synonym everywhere for tyranny, odious to all liberals in 
Europe and America. 

A Congress was held at Troppau in 1820 and at Laibach in 182 1 to 
consider the question of Naples. It was participated in by the three 
powers mentioned and by France and England. The two 
last named did not join in the declaration of the new doc- gress of 
trine but they remained passive and the absolute powers, Troppau, 
Austria, Prussia, and Russia had their way. They com- 
missioned Austria to send an army into the Kingdom of Naples, to abolish 
Ihe constitution, and to restore absolutism. This was done. The results 
were for the Neapolitans most deplorable. The reaction that ensued 
was unrestrained. Hundreds were imprisoned, exiled, executed. Arbi- 
trary government of the worst kind was meted out to this unfortunate 
people. 

Just as this Neapolitan revolution was being snuffed out a similar 
revolution blazed up at the opposite end of the peninsula, in Pied- 
mont, the revolutionists demanding the Spanish Consti- ^j^^ j^^ 
tution of 181 2, as the most liberal one they knew of, and lution in 
war against Austria as the great enemy of Piedmont and ^^ ™°° 
Italy. The King, Victor Emanuel I, rather than yield to the demand for 
a revolution abdicated and was succeeded by his brother, Charles Felix 
(March 13, 1821). The new King was a despot by nature and he now 
had the support of the same powers that had shown their intentions in 
regard to revolutions. Charles Felix, assisted by the Austrians, routed 
the revolutionists at Novara. The revolution was over. Once more 
the demand for constitutional freedom had been suppressed, once more 
Metternich had triumphed. Needless to say he was quite satisfied. 
I see the dawn of a better day," he wrote. "Heaven seems to will 
it that the world shall not be lost." 

The two Italian revolutions had been suppressed. The doctrine of 
intervention was working satisfactorily to its authors. It was now ap- 
plied again, this time to Spain, in which country, as we ^j^^ q^^_ 
have seen, the revolutionary movement of these years had gress of 
begun. The consideration of Spanish affairs had had to ^®''°°^ 
give way to the more immediate and pressing affairs of Italy. The 
principle there, however, was the same and the Allies now prepared to 
assert it. This was the work of the Congress of Verona (1822). Austria, 



268 THE CONGRESSES 

Russia, and Prussia regarded a constitutional government in Spain as a 
menace to their own system of absolutism. They therefore commis- 
sioned France, now a thoroughly reactionary country, to restore Ferdi- 
nand to his former power. England opposed this policy with high 
indignation, but in vain. The French sent an army of a hundred thou- 
sand men into the peninsula which was easily victorious. The war was 
soon over and Ferdinand was back on his absolute throne, by act of 
France, supported by the Holy AlHance. 

There now began a period of odious reaction. All the acts passed 
by the Cortes since 1820 were annulled. An organization called the 
Reaction in "Society of the Exterminating Angel" began a mad hunt 
Spain for Liberals, throwing them into prison, shooting them 

down. The war of revenge knew no bounds. " Juntas of Purification" 
urged it on. Thousands were driyen from the country, hundreds were 
executed. The French government, ashamed of its protege, endeavored 
to stop the savagery, but with slight success. It is an odious chapter in 
the history of Spain. 

The Holy Alliance, by these triumphs in Naples, Piedmont, and 
Spain, showed itself the dominant force in European politics. The sys- 
tem, named after Metternich, because his diplomacy had 
triumph of built it up and because he stood in the very center of it, 
the Holy seemed firmly established as the European system. But 

it had achieved its last notable triumph. It was now to 
receive a series of checks which were to limit it forever. 

Having restored absolutism in Spain the Holy Allies considered re- 
storing to Spain her revolted American colonies. In this purpose they 
encountered the pronounced opposition of England and the 
Alliance and United States both of which were willing that Spain herself 

the Monroe should try to recover them but not that the Holy Alliance 
Doctrine -^ 

should recover them for her. As England controlled the 

seas she could prevent the Alliance from sending troops to the scene of 
revolt. The President of the United States, James Monroe, in a mes- 
sage to Congress (December 2, 1823), destined to become one of the most 

_,. famous documents ever written in the White House, an- 

Ine 

" Metternich nounced that we should consider any attempt on the part 

^h^'k°d °^ these absolute monarchs to extend their system to any 

portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 

safety, as the "manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 269 

Jnited States." This attitude of England and the United States pro- 
luced its effect. After this no new laurels were added to the Holy 
Uliance. A few years later Russia was herself encouraging and sup- 
)orting a revolution on the part of the Greeks against the Turks, and 
n 1830 revolutions broke out in France and Belgium which demolished 
:he system of Metternich beyond all possible repair. 

REFERENCES 

Congress or Vienna: Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, pp. 380-387; 411-418; 
klarriott and Robertson, The Evolution of Prussia, pp. 256-276; Sybel, The Founding 
/ the German Empire, Vol. I, Chap. Ill; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IX, Chaps. 
UX and XXI. 

Reaction in Germany aeter 1815: Henderson, Short History of Germany, Vol. 
I, Chap. VIII, pp. 324-343; Marriott and Robertson, Chap. IX, pp. 277-304; Sche- 
dll, The Making of Modern Germany, pp. 99-114; Fyffe, pp. 446-469; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. X, Chap. XI, pp. 340-382. 

Reaction in Italy after 1815: Probjoi, Italy, 1815 to 1870, pp. 1-27; Bolton 
iCing, A History of Italian Unity, Vol. I, Chaps. III-V; Thayer, Dawn of Italian Inde- 
pendence, Vol. I, pp. 139-311; Stillman, Unity of Italy, pp. 1-40; Cambridge Modern 
listory. Vol. X, Chap. IV, pp. 104^130. 

Reaction in Spain after 1815: Butler Clarke, Modern Spain, Chaps. II and III; 
lume, Modern Spain, Chap. V; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. X, pp. 205-230. 

The Congresses: Fyffe, pp. 478-524; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 57-134; 
jeignobos, Political History of Europe Since 181 4, pp. 747-762; Cambridge Modern 
listory. Vol. X, Chap. I, pp. 1-39. " 



CHAPTER XITI 
FRANCE UNDER THE RESTORATION 

THE REIGN OF LOUIS XVIII 

The House of Bourbon had been put back upon the throne of France 
by the AlUes who had conquered Napoleon in 1814. It was put back a 
The restora- second time in 18 1 5, after Waterloo. But the new mon- 
tion of the arch, Louis XVIII, recognized, as did the Allies, that the 
not"a restora- restoration of the royal line did not at all mean the resto- 
tion of the ration of the Old Regime. He saw that the day of the 
egime absolute monarchy had passed forever in France. The 
monarchy must be constitutional and must safeguard many of the ac- 
quisitions of the Revolution or its life would certainly be brief. 
The King, recognizing that he must compromise with the spirit of the 
age, issued in 18 14 the Constitutional Charter. This established a 
parliament of two houses, a Chamber of Peers, appointed 
stitutionai for life, and a Chamber of Deputies, elected for a term of 
Charter of f^^Q years, but by a restricted body of voters, for the suf- 
frage was so limited by an age and property qualification 
that there were less than 100,000 voters out of a population of 29,000,000, 
and not more than 12,000 were eligible to become deputies. The Charter 
proclaimed the equality of all Frenchmen, yet only a petty minority 
were given the right to participate in the government of the country. 
France was still in a political sense a land of privilege, only privilege was 
no longer based on birth but on fortune. Nevertheless, this was a more 
liberal form of government than she had ever had under Napoleon, and 
was the most liberal to be seen in Europe, outside of England. 

There was another set of provisions in this document of even greater 
importance than those determining the future form of government, 
Provisions namely, that in which the civil rights of Frenchmen were 
concerning narrated. These provisions showed how much of the 
"^ ^ work of the Revolution and of Napoleon the Bourbons 
were prepared to accept. They were intended to reassure the people 

270 



THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION 



271 



of France, who feared to see in the Restoration a loss of Uberties or rights 

which had become most precious to them. It was declared that all 

Frenchmen were equal before the law, and thus the cardinal principle 

3f the Revolution was preserved; that all were equally eligible to civil 

ind military positions, that thus no class should monopolize public 

service, as had ^ 

Recognition 
largely been the case of the work 

before the Revolu- °^ t^e Revo- 
lution 
tion; that no one 

should be arrested or prosecuted 
save by due process of law, that 
thus the day of arbitrary im- 
prisonment was not to return; 
that there should be complete re- 
ligious freedom for all sects, al- 
though Roman Catholicism was 
declared to be the religion of the 
state; that the press should be 
free. Those who had purchased 
the confiscated property of the 
crown, the church, and the nobles, 
during the Revolution were as- 
sured that their titles were in- 
violable. 

The personality of Louis 
K^VIII seemed admirably adapted to the situation in which Louis XVIII 
France found itself. A man of moderate opinions, cold- (1814-1824) 
Dlooded, skeptical, free from illusions, free from the passion of revenge, 
ndolent by nature, Louis desired to avoid conflicts and to enjoy his 
3ower in peace. But there were difficulties in the way. He had been 
restored by foreign armies. His presence on the throne was a constant 
reminder of the humiliation of France. But a more serious feature was 
the character of the persons with whom he was in constant contact, 
rhe court was now composed of the nobles who had suffered greatly 
:rom the Revolution, who had been robbed of their property, who had 
5een many of their relatives executed by the guillotine. It was but 
latural that these men should have come back full of hatred for the 
luthors of their woes, that they should detest the ideas of the Revolu- 




Louis XVIII 

From an engraving by P. Audouin, after the 

bust by A. Valois. 



272 FRANCE UNDER THE RESTORATION 

tion and the persons who had been identified with it. These men were 
not free from passion, as was Louis XVIII. More eager to restore the 
former glory of the crown, the former rank of the nobihty and the 
clergy, more bitter toward the new ideas than the King 
himself, they were the Ultra-royahsts, or Ultras — men 
more royalist than the King, as they claimed. They saw in the Revo- 
-lution only robbery and sacrilege and gross injustice to themselves. 
They bitterly assailed Louis XVIII for granting the Charter, a danger- 
ous concession to the Revolution, and they secretly wished to abolish 
it, meanwhile desiring to nullify its liberal provisions as far as possible. 
Their leader was the Count of Artois, brother of Louis XVIII, who, 
the King being childless, stood next in line of succession. 

For some years Louis XVIII was able to hold this extreme party in 
check and to follow a moderate policy. He was supported in this by the 
The work of l^^rge majority of Liberals, moderate like himself, who until 
reorganiza- 1820 controlled Parliament. Much useful work was thus 
°°^ accomplished. The enormous war indemnity which the 

Allies had imposed in 181 5 was paid off and this liberated the country 
from the army of occupation also imposed by them. The military sys- 
tem of France was reorganized and provision was made for an army of 
about 240,000 men. Promotion was to be for service and merit alone, 
a principle that was violently opposed by the Ultras as it destroyed all 
chances of the nobility securing a monopoly of the best positions. The 
legislation enacted at this time concerning the press and the electoral 
system was also of a liberal character. 

The Ultras were indignant at the moderation of the King and 
Parliament and did their best to break it down. They were alert 
Activity of to seize upon every incident that might discredit the party 
the Ultras [^ power. A number of radicals were elected to the 
Chamber of Deputies. The Ultras raged against them, painting a lurid 
future. The murder in 1820 of the Duke of Berry who stood in line 
for the throne gave them their chance. The King was so horrified by 
this crime, as were also many moderate members of Parliament, that 
Death of ^^ offered less and less resistance to the Ultras. The 

Louis xvm closing years of the reign were less liberal than the earlier 
ones. Louis XVIII died in 1824 and was succeeded by 
his brother, the Count of Artois, who assumed the title of Charles X. 



REACTIONARY LEGISLATION 273 

THE REIGN OF CHARLES X 

The characteristics of the new King were well known. He was the 
anvinced leader of the reactionaries in France from 1814 to 1830. He 
ad been the constant and bitter opponent of his brother's Charles X 
beralism, and had finally seen that liberalism forced to (1824-1830) 
ield to the growing strength of the party which he led. He was not 
kely to abandon lifelong principles at the age of sixty-seven, and at 
le moment when he seemed about to be able to put them into force. 

The coronation of the King revealed the temper of the new reign, 
ranee was treated to a spectacle of mediaeval mummery that amused 
nd at the same time disgusted a people that had never been known to 
Lck an appreciation of the ridiculous. Charles was anointed on seven 
arts of his person with sacred oil, miraculously preserved, it was 
sserted, from the time of Clovis. 

The legislation urged by the King and largely enacted showed the 
elated political and social ideas of this government. Nearly a billion 
•ancs were voted as an indemnity to the nobles for their ^j^^ nobles 
mds which had been confiscated and sold by the state indemnified 
uring the Revolution. Many Frenchmen thought that confiscated^ 
ranee had more urgent needs than to vote money to during the 
lose who had deserted the country and had then fought 
gainst her. But the King had been leader of the emigres and was in 
ntire sympathy with their point of view. 

Another law that cast discredit upon this reign, and helped under- 
line it with the great mass of Frenchmen, was the law against sacrilege. 
ly this act burglaries committed in ecclesiastical buildings ^j^^ j^^ 
ad the profanation of holy vessels were, under certain against 
Dnditions, made punishable with death. This barbaric law ^^" ^^® 
'as, as a matter of fact, never enforced, but it bore striking witness to 
le temper of the party in power, and has ever since been a mark of 
lame upon the Bourbon monarchy. It helped to weaken the hold of 
le Bourbons upon France. It created a feeling of intense bitterness 
mong the middle and lower classes of society, which were still largely 
ominated by the rationalism of the eighteenth century. These classes 
egan to fear the clerical reaction more even than the polit- clerical 
:al and social. Their apprehension was not decreased reaction 
'hen a little later they saw the King himself^ clad in the violet robe of a 



274 FRANCE UNDER THE RESTORATION 

prelate and accompanied by the court, walking in a religious procession 
and carrying a lighted candle through the streets of Paris. Was it the 
purpose of the aristocratic and clerical party to restore both the nobility 
and the church to the proud position they had occupied before the 
Revolution? 

That it was, was proclaimed by Polignac, the most reactionary min- 
ister of this reign, who declared, on his accession to office in 1829, that 
his object was " to reorganize society, to restore to the 
Polignac clergy its former preponderance in the state, to create a 

°^*^^^ powerful aristocracy and to surround it with privileges." 

The appointment of this ministry, indeed, aroused a remarkable 
exhibition of hostile feeling, vastly intensified by this declaration 
which was a direct challenge to Liberals of every shade, since it 
stated, as clearly as language could, that all the characteristic work of 
the French Revolution must be undone, that the pre-Revolutionary 
state and society should be restored, that the constitutional, political, 
social, and economic reorganization, the large installment of freedom, 
achieved during that momentous and fruitful period, should be swept 
aside, and that older ideas and ideals were to be enthroned once more. 

The appointment of the Polignac ministry and its audacious and 
alarming announcement precipitated a crisis, which shortly exploded in 
Conflict ^ revolution. The Chamber of Deputies practically de- 

between manded the dismissal of the unpopular ministry. The 

and the King replied by declaring that "his decisions were un- 

Chamber of changeable" and by dissolving the Chamber, hoping by 
means of new elections to secure one subsei-vient to his 
will. But the voters thought otherwise. The elections resulted in 
a crushing defeat for the King and his ministry. Charles would not 
yield. His own brother, Louis XVI, had come to a tragic end, he 
said, because he had made concessions. Charles thought that he 
himself had learned something from history. In fact, he had learned 
the wrong lesson. 

Other methods of gaining his ends having failed, he now determined 
upon coercion. On July 26, 1830, he issued several ordinances,' suspend- 
The '^^S the liberty of the press, dissolving the Chamber of 

Ordinances Deputies, changing the electoral system, reducing the mmi- 
ber of voters from 100,000 to 25,000, and ordering new 
elections. In other words, the King was the supreme lawgiver, not at 



THE JULY REVOLUTION (1830) 



27s 




g < 






276 FRANCE UNDER THE RESTORATION 

all hampered by the Charter. If these ordinances were to stand the 
people would enjoy their liberties simply at the humor of the monarch. 
Not to have opposed them would have been to acquiesce quietly in 
the transformation of the government into the absolute monarchy of 

Louis XIV. 

But the people of Paris did not acquiesce. As the significance of 
the ordinances became apparent, popular anger began to manifest itself. 
The July Rev- Crowds assembled in the streets shouting "Down with the 
oiution (1830) Ministry"; "Long live the Charter." On Wednesday, 
July 28, civil war broke out. The insurgents were mainly old soldiers, 
Carbonari, and a group of republicans and workmen — men who hated 
the Bourbons, who followed the tri-color flag as the true national emblem, 
rather than the white flag of the royal house. This war lasted three 
days. It was the July Revolution — the Glorious Three Days. It was 
a street war and was limited to Paris. The insurgents were not very 
numerous, probably not more than ten thousand. But the government 
had itself probably not more than fourteen thousand troops in Paris. 
The insurrection was not difficult to organize. The streets of Paris 
were narrow and crooked. Through such tortuous lanes it was impos- 
sible for the government to send artillery, a weapon which it alone 
Th har- possessed. The streets were paved with large stones, 
acter of These could be torn up and piled in such a way as to make 

fighting fortresses for the insurgents. In the night of July 27-28 

the streets were cut up by hundreds of barricades made in this manner 
of paving stones, of overturned wagons, of barrels and boxes, of furni- 
ture, of trees and objects of every description. Against such obstacles 
the soldiers could make but Uttle progress. If they overthrew a barri- 
cade and passed on, it would immediately be built up again behind them 
more threatening than before because cutting their line of reinforce- 
ments and of possible retreat. Moreover, the soldiers had only the 
flint-lock gun, a weapon no better than that in the hands of the in- 
surgents. Again, the officers had no knowledge of street fighting, whereas 
the insurgents had an intimate knowledge of the city, of its streets, and 
lanes. Moreover, the soldiers were reluctant to fight against the people. 
Abdication of The fighting continued amid the fierce heat of July. On 
Charles X j^^y ^^ Charles, seeing that all was lost, abdicated in favor 
of his nine year old grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux, son of the murdered 
Duke of Berry, and fled to England with his family. For two years he 



THE JULY REVOLUTION (1830) 



277 




278 FRANCE UNDER THE RESTORATION 

lived in Great Britain, keeping a melancholy court in Holyrood Palace, 
Edinburgh, of somber memory in the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. 
Removing later to Austria, he died in 1836. 

What was the future government to be, now that triumphant revo- 
lution had swept for the second time a Bourbon monarch from his 
throne? No serious consideration was given to the claims 
f Bourbon ^^ ^^^ little Duke of Bordeaux, unimpeachable from the 
or the point of view of monarchical theory and practice. He was 

Orleans? ^^^ legitimate sovereign of France but he was quietly ig- 

nored by a people who were tired of the legitimate mon- 
archy. Those who had done the actual fighting undoubtedly wanted a 
republic. But the journalists and deputies and the majority of the Paris- 
ians were opposed to such a solution, having vivid and unpleasant mem- 
ories of the former republic, and believing that the proclamation of the 
republic would embroil France with monarchical Europe. They favored 
Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who represented a younger branch of 
the royal family, a man who had always sympathized with liberal opin- 
ions. With such a man as king, it was said, there would be no more 
attempts to reenthrone the nobility and the clergy, but the govern- 
ment would be liberal, resting on the middle classes, and the Charter 
would be scrupulously observed. 

The final decision between monarchy and republic lay in the hands 
of Lafayette, the real leader of the Republicans. He finally threw 
L^yjg his influence in favor of Louis Philippe, arguing that a 

Philippe monarchy under so liberal and democratic a prince would 

"^ after all be "the best of repubhcs." On August 7 the 

Chamber of Deputies called Louis Philippe to the throne, ignoring the 
claims of the legitimate ruler. 

Such was the July Revolution, an unexpected, impromptu affair. 
Not dreamed of July 25, it was over a week later. One king had been 
overthrown, another created, and the Charter had been slightly mod- 
ified. Parliamentary government had been preserved; a return to 
aristocracy prevented. 

This ends the Restoration and the reign of Louis Philippe now begins. 

The end Those who brought about the final overthrow of the elder 

of the Bourbons received no adequate reward. They had the 

tri-color flag once more, but the rich bourgeoisie had the 

government. The Republicans yielded, but without renouncing their 



THE JULY REVOLUTION 279 

principles or their hopes. Cavaignac, one of their leaders, when thanked 
for the abnegation of his party, replied, "You are wrong in thanking us; 
we have yielded because we are not yet strong enough. Later it will 
be different." The Revolution, in fact, gave great impetus to the doc- 
trine of the sovereignty of the people. 

REFERENCES 

The Constitutional Charter of 1814: Anderson, Consiitulions and Documents, 
No. 93, pp. 456-464. 

Reign of Louis XVIII: Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, pp. 375-380, All -Ml, 
469-475; PhiUips, Modern Europe, pp. 23-36, 81-86; Seignobos, Political History oj 
Europe Since 1S14, pp. 103-121. 

Reign of Charles X: Fyffe, pp. 603-619; Seignobos, pp. 121-132; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. X, pp. 85-103. 



CHAPTER XIV 

REVOLUTIONS BEYOND FRANCE 

The influence of the Revolution of 1830 was felt all over Europe — 
in Poland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, England, and the Netherlands. 
Widespread It was the signal and encouragement for widespread pop- 
the^Tufv ° ^^^^ movements which for a short time seemed to threaten 
Revolution the whole structure erected in 181 5 at Vienna. It created 
an immediate problem for the rulers of Europe. They had bound them- 
selves in 1815 to guard against the outbreak of "revolution," to watch 
over and assure the " general tranquillity " of Europe. They had adopted 
and applied since then, as we have seen, the doctrine of intervention in 
the affairs of countries infected by revolutionary fever, as the great 
preservative of public order. Would this self-constituted international 
police acquiesce in the overthrow of the legitimate king of France by 
the mob of Paris? Now that revolution had again broken out in that 
restless country, would they "intervene" as they had done in Spain 
and Italy? At first they were disposed to do so. Metternich's immedi- 
ate impulse was to organize a coalition against this " king of the barri- 
cades." But when the time came this was seen to be impracticable, 

for Russia was occupied with a revolution in Poland, 
Powerless- , , ^ 

ness of the Austria with revolutions in Italy, Prussia with similar 

^^^ movements in Germany, and England was engrossed in 

the most absorbing discussion of domestic problems she 
had faced in many decades. Moreover, England approved the revolu- 
tion. All the powers, therefore, recognized Louis Philippe, though 
with varying indications of annoyance. In one particular, consequently, 
the settlement of 1815 was undone forever. The elder branch of the 
House of Bourbon, put upon the throne of France by the Allies of 
1815, was now. pushed from it, and the revolution, hated of the other 
powers, had done it. 

280 



DISCONTENT IN THE NETHERLANDS 281 

Another part of the diplomatic structure of 181 5 was now over- 
thrown. The Congress of Vienna had created an essentially artificial 
state to the north of France, the Kingdom of the Nether- -pj^^ q^^_ 
lands. It had done this explicitly for the purpose of hav- gress of 
ing a barrier against France. The Belgian provinces, the'^Klngdom 
hitherto Austrian, were in 181 5 annexed to Holland, to of the Neth- 
strengthen that state in order that it might be in a posi- ^^ ^° ^ 
tion to resist attack until the other powers should come to its rescue. 

But it was easier to declare these two peoples formally united under 
one ruler than to make them in any real sense a single nation. Though 
it might seem by a glance at the map that the peoples of ^ ^jj^^ ^^ 
this little corner of Europe must be essentially homoge- two dissimi- 
neous, such was not at all the case. There were many more ^ ^^°^ ®^ 
points of difference than of similarity between them. They spoke dif- 
ferent languages. They belonged to different religions, the Dutch being 
Protestant, the Belgians Catholic. They differed in their economic 
life and principles. The Dutch were an agricultural and commercial 
people and inclined toward free trade, the Belgians were a manufactur- 
ing people and inclined toward protection. 

For the Belgians the union with the Dutch was an unhappy one 
from the start. They saw themselves added to and subjected to another 
people inferior in numbers to themselves, whereas the feeling of nation- 
ality bad been aroused in them as in other peoples by the spirit and 
example of the French Revolution and they had hoped for a larger and 
more independent life than they had ever had before. 

A union so inharmoniously begun was never satisfactory to the Bel- 
gians. Friction was constant. The Belgians resented the fact that the 

officials in the state and army were nearly all Dutch. They 

1 • 1 T^- ) r 1 T^ 1 1 Friction 

objected to the Kmg s attempts to force the Dutch Ian- between the 

guage into a position of undue privilege. The evident Belgians and 
1 • r 1 T^- r 1 • 1 • the Dutch 

desire of the Kmg to fuse his two peoples into one was a 

constant irritation. The system was more and more disliked by the 
Belgians as the years went by. 

The July Revolution came as a spark in the midst of all this inflam- 
mable material. There was street fighting in Brussels as ^j^^ Belgians 
there had been in Paris. The revolution spread rapidly, declare their 
The royal troops were driven out and on October 4, 1830, I'^^^P^'^d^^^^® 
Belgium declared itself independent. A congress was called to deter- 



282 



REVOLUTIONS BEYOND FRANCE 



mine the future form of government. It decided in favor of a mon- 
archy, adopted a liberal constitution, and elected as king Leopold of 
Coburg who, in July, 1831, was crowned. 

Would the Great Powers which in 181 5 had added Belgium to Hol- 
land consent to the undoing of their work? Would they recognize the 
new kingdom? They had suppressed revolutions in Spain and Italy, as 
we have seen. Would they do it 
again in the interest of their handi- 
work, the treaties of Vienna? Now, 
however, they were divided, and 
in this division lay the salvation 
of the new state. The Czar wished 
to intervene and Prussia seemed 
similarly incUned, but Louis 
Philippe, knowing that his own 
throne would be overthrown by the 
Parisians if he allowed these abso- 
lute monarchies to crush the new 
liberties of the Belgians, gave ex- 
plicit warning that if they inter- 
vened France also would intervene 
" in order to hold the balance even. ' ' 

The powers therefore made thr 
best of the situation. At a confer- 
ence in London, Rus- 
Recogmtion 
of the King- sia, Prussia, Austria, 

dom of France, and England 

Belgium . 

recognized the independence of Belgium; they went fur- 
ther and formally promised to respect its neutrality forever. 

This part of the work of the Congress of Vienna had consequently been 
undone. A new state had arisen in Europe, as a result of revolution. 

The success of the Belgian revolution had to a considerable extent 
been rendered possible by a revolution in Poland, which ended in dis- 
astrous failure. Neither Russia, nor Prussia, nor Austria would have 
acquiesced so easily in the dismemberment of the Kingdom of the Neth- 
erlands had they not feared that if they went to war with France con- 
cerning it, France would in turn aid the Poles, and the future of the 
Poles was of far greater immediate importance to them than the future 




Leopold I 

Engraved by Levy after the painting by 

Winterhalter. 



POLAND AND THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 283 

of the Netherlanders. The French Revolution of 1830 was followed by 
the rise of the Kingdom of Belgium; but it was also followed by the 
disappearance of the Kingdom of Poland. 

REVOLUTION IN POLAND 

In the Middle Ages Poland had been a more powerful state than 
Russia and included territory which stretched from the Baltic to the 
Black Sea and from the Oder to the Dnieper. It had remained an 
independent state down to the last quarter of the eighteenth century. 
During that quarter its independence had been destroyed and its 
territory seized by its three neighbors, Russia, Prussia, ^j^^ ^egtruc- 
and Austria, in the famous, or rather infamous, partitions tion of 
of 1772, 1793, and 1795. Nothing was left of Poland on °^° 
the map. The Poles made a brave and desperate resistance but "free- 
dom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." "No sophistry in the world," 
writes a recent historian, " can extenuate the villainy of the Second Par- 
tition," which was the critical one. "The theft of territory is its least 
offensive feature. It is the forcible suppression of a national movement 
of reform, the hurling back into the abyss of anarchy and corruption 
of a people who, by incredible efforts and sacrifices, had struggled back 
to liberty and order, which makes this great political crime so wholly 
infamous. Yet here again the methods of the Russian Em- The crime 
press were less vile than those of the Prussian King. °^ ^"^^^ 
Catherine openly took the risk of a bandit who attacks an enemy 
against whom he has a grudge; Frederick William II came up, when 
the fight was over, to help pillage a victim whom he had sworn to 
defend." ' 

The effects of this assassination of an independent state by the three 
absolute monarchies of eastern Europe were destined to be momentous 
and far-reaching. The Polish question has been a factor ^ permanent 
in all the subsequent history of Europe. It is an important Polish 
factor to-day. The Poles, naturally, like any freedom-lov- ^"^^ '°° 
ing people, refused to acquiesce in a fate so unmerited, so cruel. But 
they could only wait and hope. 

"No wise or honest man," wrote Edmund Burke at the time, "can 
approve of that partition, or can contemplate it without prognosti- 
cating great mischief from it to all countries at some future date." The 
1 Nisbet Bain, Slavonic Europe, p. 404. 



284 



REVOLUTIONS BEYOND FRANCE 



particular effect of this odious act of the royal and titled highway- 
men was the extraordinary intensification it gave to what was to 
The destruc- prove one of the most vital and troublesome tendencies 
tion of Po- of modern history. As Lord Acton says: "This famous 
the spirit of measure, the most revolutionary act of the old absolu- 
nationality tism, awakened the theory of nationality in Europe, con- 
verting a dormant right into an aspiration, and a sentiment into a 
political claim." 

The Polish people's passionate love of country was given an imperish- 
able ideal, a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night, riveting the 
attention of the nation so wantonly destroyed, pointing the way, not 
yet traversed, to a happy issue out of their troubles. 

The Poles had hoped that the French Revolution, and, later, that 
Napoleon might restore their nationality. In this they were disap- 
The pointed; but in 1S15 at 

restoration ^^e Congress of Vienna 
of the King- ^, , ^ , ^ , 

dom of Po- they found unexpected 
land in 1815 ^[^^ though it proved in 
the end illusory. Alexander I, Czar 
of Russia, was at that time aglow 
with generous and romantic senti- 
ments and was for a few years a 
patron of liberal ideas in various 
countries. Under the influence of 
these ideas he conceived the plan of 
restoring the old Kingdom of Poland. 
Poland should be a kingdom entirely 
separate from the Empire of Russia. 
He would be Emperor of Russia and 
King of Poland. The union of the 
two states would be simply personal. 

Alexander had desired to restore Poland to the full extent of its pos- 
sessions in the eighteenth century. To render this possible Prussia and 
Austria must relinquish the provinces they had acquired in the three 
partitions. This, however, was not accomplished at the Congress of 
Vienna. Although Prussia and Austria did give back some of their 
Polish possessions, they retained some. The tragedy of Poland, then 
as now, was that the Poles, in spirit a single people, were subjects of 




Alexander I 
From an engraving by Allais. 



REVOLUTION IN POLAND 285 

three nations and as such might be forced to fight each other, in that 
most dreadful of conflicts, that of brother against brother. 

The new Pohsli Kingdom, erected in 181 5, was simply a part, there- 
fore, of historic Poland, nor did it include all of the Polish territories 

that Russia had acquired. Of this new state Alexander 

11- rr^ • 1 1 • • 1 Alexander I 

was to be kmg. io it he granted a constitution, estab- grants a 

lishing a parliament of two chambers, with considerable constitution 

■r. ^ , ,• • • , 1 to Poland 

powers. Roman Catholicism was recognized as the state 

religion; but a generous measure of toleration was given to other sects. 
Liberty of the press was guaranteed, subject to laws designed to prevent 
its abuse. The Polish language was made the official language. All 
positions in the government were to be filled by Poles, not by Russians. 
No people in central Europe possessed such liberal institutions as those 
with which the Poles were now invested. A prosperous career as a con- 
stitutional monarchy seemed about to begin. The Poles had never 
enjoyed so much civil freedom, and they were now receiving a con- 
siderable measure of home-rule. But this regime, well-meant and full 
of promise, encountered obstacles from the start. The Rus- 
sians were opposed to the idea of a restored Poland, and between the 
particularly to a constitutional Poland, w^hen they them- -^o'^! ^^^ *^® 
selves had no constitution. Why should their old enemy be 
so greatly favored when they, the real supporters of the Czar, were not? 
The hatred of Russians and Poles, a fact centuries old, continued un- 
diminished. Moreover, what the dominant class of Poles desired, far 
more than liberal government, was independence. They could never 
forget the days of. their prosperity. Unfortunately they ^j^^ p^j^^ 
had not the wisdom or self-control to use their present con- divided into 
siderable liberties for the purpose of building up the social ° *^ ^^^^^ 
solidarity which Poland had always lacked, by redressing the crying 
grievances of the serfs against the nobles, by making all Poles feel 
that they were a united people rather than two classes of oppressors and 
oppressed. They did not seek gradually to develop under the pro- 
tection of their constitution a true and vigorous nationality, which might 
some day be strong enough to win its independence, but they showed 
their dissatisfaction with the limited powers Alexander had granted. 
They criticised the Czar's government for various things and were 
immediately warned by the Czar. Friction developed and grew at the 
very time that Alexander's early liberalism was fading away. 



286 REVOLUTIONS BEYOND FRANCE 

His successor, Nicholas I, who came to the throne in 1825, was a 
thorough-going absolutist, animated by an entirely different temper. 
The spirit of unrest was strong among the mass of the lesser PoHsh 
nobility, a class little accustomed to self-control and also strongly in- 
fluenced by the democratic ideas of western Europe. This party was 
Influence of ^^^ inflamed by the reports of the successful revolution 
the July in France; by the belief that the French would aid them 

evoution j^ ^j^^^ strove to imitate their example. When, therefore, 
the Czar summoned the Polish army to prepare for a campaign whose 
object was the suppression of the Belgian revolution, the determination 
of the Liberals was quickly made. They rose in insurrection toward the 
end of .1830, declared that the House of Romanoff had ceased to rule 
in Poland, and prepared for a life and death struggle. 

Russia's military resources, however, were so great that Poland 
could not hope alone to achieve her national independence. The Poles 
The Polish expected foreign intervention, but no intervention came, 
expectation Enthusiasm for the Poles was widespread among the 

of foreign . . . 

aid disapf people in France, in England, and m Germany. But 

pointed ^^Q governments, none of which was controlled by public 

opinion, refused to move. 

Thus Poland was left to fight alone with Russia and of the outcome 
there could be no doubt. The Poles fought with great bravery, but 
The failure without good leadership, without careful organization, 
of the insur- without a Spirit of subordination to military authorities. 
The war went on from January, 1831, until September of 
that year, when Warsaw fefl before the Russians. The results of this 
ill-advised and ill-executed insurrection were deplorable in the extreme. 
Poland ceased to exist as a separate kingdom and became merely a prov- 
ince of the Russian Empire. Its constitution was abolished and it was 
henceforth ruled with great severity and arbitrariness. The insurgents 
were savagely punished. Many were executed, many sent to Siberia. 
Thousands of PoHsh officers and soldiers escaped to the countries of 
western Europe and became a revolutionary element in Paris, Berlin, 
and Vienna, always ready to fight for liberty. They were the sworn 
foes of tyranny everywhere as they were its most conspicuous victims. 
Even the Polish language seemed doomed, so repressive was the policy 
now followed by Russia. The Poles' sole satisfaction was a highly al- 
truistic one, that by their revolt they had contributed greatly to the 



DISTURBANCES IN GERMANY 287 

success of the revolutions in France and Belgium. They had prevented 
the Holy Alliance from intervening to suppress the revolutions of 1830, 
as it had suppressed those of 1820. 

REVOLUTION IN ITALY 

Another country which felt the revolutionary wave of 1830 was 

Italy. Revolutions broke out in the duchies of Modena and Parma, 

whose rulers were forced to flee, and in parts of the Papal Revolutions 

States. Hatred of Austria and dissatisfaction with local '" ^|^y 

arbitrary and despotic governments were the causes. The pressed in 

revolutionists expected the hostility of Austria but they ^^^^ 

hoped for the support of France as well as of the people of other Italian 

states. But none was forthcoming, Louis Philippe feeling too insecure 

himself at home. The result was that Austrian troops appeared upon 

the scene and easily restored the exiled rulers. The Pope recovered 

his provinces. The episode was over. Reaction again held sway in 

Italy. 

REVOLUTION IN GERMANY 

Thus in 1830 revolution raged with varying vehemence all about 
Germany — in France, in Belgium, in Poland, and in Italy. The move- 
ment also affected Germany itself. In Brunswick, Saxony, Revolution 
Hesse-Cassel, and in two Saxon duchies revolutionary ^°^ Germany 
movements broke out with the result that several new constitutions 
were added to those already granted. The new ones were chiefly in 
North German, whereas the earlier ones had been mainly in South Ger- 
man states. But the two great states, Austria and Prussia, passed un- 
scathed and set themselves to bring about a reaction, as soon as the more 
pressing dangers in Poland and Italy and France were over, and they 
themselves felt secure. Using certain popular demonstrations, essen- 
tially insignificant, with all the effect with which he had previously 
used the Wartburg festival, Metternich succeeded in carrying reaction 
further than he had been able to even in the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819. 
Those decrees w^ere aimed chiefly at the universities and the press. New 
regulations were adopted in 1832 and 1834 by which he secured not only 
the renewal of these but the enactment of additional repressive measures, 
restricting the rights of such parliaments as existed in various states 
and still further muzzling the universities and the press. Constitutional 
life in the few states where it existed was reduced to a minimum. The 



288 REVOLUTIONS BEYOND FRANCE 

political history of Germany offers but little interest until the great mid- 
century uprising of 1848 shook this entire system of negation and 
repression to the ground. 

REFERENCES 

Rise of the Kingdom of Belgium: Ensor, Belgium (Home University Library), 
pp. 114—141; Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, pp. 619-625; Phillips, Modern Europe, 
pp. 186-199; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. X, Chap. XVI, pp. 517-544. 

Polish Insurrection: PhiUips, Poland (Home University Library), Chap. VIII, 
pp. 101-125; Fyi5e, pp. 625-630; Skrine, The Expansion of Russia, pp. 110-122; 
Cambridge Modern History, Vol. X, pp. 445-474. 

Revolutions in Italy: Fyffe, pp. 631-635; Thayer, Dawn of Italian Indepen- 
dence, Vol. I, pp. 342-378. 

Revolutionary Movements in Germany: Sybel, The Founding of the German 
Empire, Vol. I, pp. 342-378; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. X, pp. 374-376. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE 

Louis Philippe, the new monarch of the French, was already in his 

fifty-seventh year. He was the son of the notorious Philippe Egalite, 

who had intrigued during the Revolution for the throne _. 

The career 
occupied by his cousin, Louis XVI, had, as a member of of Louis 

the Convention, voted for the latter's execution, and had Philippe 

. . (1773-1850) 

himself later perished miserably on the scaffold. In 1789 

Louis Philippe was only sixteen years of age, too young to take part 
in poHtics, although he became a member of the Jacobin Club. Later 
he joined the army and fought valiantly for the Republic at Valmy 
and Jemappes. Becoming suspected of treason he fled from France in 
1793 and entered upon a life of exile that was to last twenty-one years. 
He went to Switzerland, where he lived for a while, teaching geography 
and mathematics in a school in Reichenau. Leaving Switzerland when 
his incognito was discovered he traveled as far north as the North Cape, 
and as far west as the United States. He finally settled in England and 
lived on a pension granted by the British government. Returning to 
France on the fall of Napoleon he was able to recover a large part of the 
family property, which, though confiscated during the Revolution, had 
not been actually sold. During the Restoration he lived in the famous 
Palais Royal in the very heart of Paris, cultivating relations that might 
some day prove useful, particularly appealing to the solid, rich bour- 
geoisie by a display of liberal sentiments and by a good- His 
humored, unconventional mode of life. He walked the liberalism 
streets of Paris alone, talked and even drank with workmen with en- 
gaging informality, and sent his sons to the public schools to associate 
with the sons of the bourgeoisie — a delicate compliment fully appre- 
ciated by the latter. But beneath this exterior of republican simplicity 
there lay a strong ambition for personal power, a nature essentially 
autocratic. 

289 



290 



THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE 



His legal 
title to the 
throne 



His legal title to his position was very weak. He was invited to as- 
cend the throne by only 219 members of the Chamber of Deputies out 
of 430, a bare majority. Moreover, the Chamber had 
never been authorized to choose a king. The first part of 
the reign was troubled. It was very doubtful whether it 
could long endure. As the 
people were never asked 
whether they wished Louis 
Philippe as their king, his 
rule always lacked any popu- 
lar sanction, such as Napo- 
leon's had always possessed. 
It had many enemies who 
denied its right to exist. Le- 
gitimists, Bonapartists, and 
Republicans. The Legiti- 
opposition mists defended 
of the Legit- the rights of 
^'^" Charles X and 

his descendants. They re- 
garded Louis Philippe as a 
usurper, a thief who had 
treacherously and shamelessly 
stolen the crown of the young 
Duke of Bordeaux. This 
party was numerically small, 
so thoroughly had the reign 
of Charles X offended and 
alienated the nation. It gave Louis Philippe little trouble save through 
the biting sarcasms wdth which aristocratic society regaled itself at the 
ex-pense of his honor and chivalry; also at the expense of his personal 
appearance. It attempted only one insurrection, which was easily put 
down. 

But Louis Philippe's struggle with the Republicans was far more 

Opposition severe. The latter had acquiesced in his rule at first on 

of the the assurance of Lafayette, in whom they reposed great 

epu cans confidence, that that rule would really constitute the best 

of republics, that the King was essentially democratic, that the popular 



Louis Philippe 

Engraving by Pannier after the painting by Win- 

terhalter. 




CHARACTER OF THE JULY MONARCHY 291 

ihrone would be surrounded by republican institutions. But both they 
and Lafayette were shortly undeceived. They had expected that the 
new government would adopt a broad, liberal, national policy, would 
consider the interests of all sections of the population, and would favor a 
democratic evolution of the country. Instead, they saw rapidly set up a 
narrow class system, which opposed democracy as it opposed aristocracy. 
The July Monarchy early asserted that its policy would be that of the 
"golden mean," neither conservative nor radical, but 
moderate. At the beginning the suffrage was broadened, of the 
by a reduction of age and property qualifications, so that "golden 
the electorate was doubled and there were now about 
200,000 voters, where there had formerly been 100,000. This might 
have been tolerable as a mere beginning in the right direction. But 
the government soon made it manifest that it was not only the begin- 
ning but the end, that there would be no further enlargement of the 
electorate. As a matter of fact this meant that it was the upper bour- 
geoisie who were henceforth to rule France, the wealthy or well-to-do 
bankers, manufacturers, merchants. The great mass of the The reign of 
people were to have no power. The argument was put ^^® wealthy 
forth that the propertied and educated were the only people fit to rule, 
that legislation considered wise for them was for the best of all as its 
benefits were diffused naturally through all classes. It was virtually 
the argument of the employer that what is good for him is good for the 
employee. 

The July Monarchy was liberal, in one way. It was an assurance 
that there should be no return toward the Old Regime, no attempt to 
restore, more or less, directly or indirectly, the aristocracy j^^ ^.^^^^ 
and the clergy to their former position. That much was to the Old 
definitely settled, once for all. On the other hand it would ^^^une 
have nothijig to do with democracy, even as a remote ideal. Democracy 

meant anarchy, disorder, violence, as the Revolution had -^^ „, _ ^„ 
•''•'' JNo progress 

shown. What was wanted was moderation, the golden toward 
mean. The July Monarchy was the reign of the upper ^™°c^^cy 
middle class, considered now, by itself, the only safe depository of power. 
No reversion to outworn, aristocratic ideals, no gradual progression 
toward democracy, but the steady maintenance, without further change, 
of the system established by the Charter as revised in 1830, such was 
the pohcy of the July Monarchy from which it never deviated. 



292 THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE 

The Republicans did not share this opinion that all wisdom was 
limited to the bourgeoisie. They wished to press forward from present 
liberties to larger liberties, to educate the people more and more to self- 
government, to legislate with a view to the interests of all the classes 
and conditions of men that are contained in a great nation. To them 
it seemed that the July Monarchy was making a grotesque simplifica- 
tion of what was in reality a very tangled and complex problem in 
identifying the welfare of France with simply the welfare of a prosper- 
Republican ous and educated class. The RepubHcans therefore be- 
insurrections came the enemies of the July Monarchy. They attempted 
insurrections which were serious, but which were put down. The Gov- 
ernment adopted vigorous measures for their suppression, breaking up 
their societies, restricting the right of association, prosecuting their edi- 
tors, crushing their newspapers under heavy fines, finally forbidding by 
law any argument for, or defense of, any other form of government than 
that of the existing monarchy, and forbidding anyone to declare him- 
self an adherent of any fallen royal house. 

These law^s greatly weakened the moral position of the July Mon- 
archy as they made individual liberty only an empty word. But they 
™ g were successful in their immediate aim. They drove 

September all rival parties, the Republicans included, to cover, and 

^^^' France was governed for eighteen years by the propertied 

classes, by an aristocracy of wealth. The Republicans, duped, seeing 
that the July Monarchy promised no growth in liberty, were the bitter 
enemies of the regime, but were effectually silenced for many long years. 
Their enmity however was a factor in the ultimate overthrow of this 
system. 

The parliamentary history of France during the ten years from 1830 
to 1840 was marked by instability. There were ten ministries within 
The Guizot ^^^ years. But from 1840 to 1848 there was only one, 
Ministry that of Guizot. For several years after his accession to 

the throne Louis Philippe was careful to guard himself 
from all appearance of assuming personal power. But now that his 
enemies were overthrow^n and crushed he began to reveal his real pur- 
pose of being monarch in fact as well as in name. He had no intention 
of following the English theory that, in constitutional as distinguished 
from absolute monarchies, the king reigns but does not govern. He 

now found in Guizot a man who sympathized with his views of kingship, 



THE GUIZOT MINISTRY 



293 



and who did not believe that the monarch should be simply an orna- 
mental head of the state. Louis Philippe had in his chief minister a 
man after his own heart. Guizot, eminent as a professor, an historian, 
and an orator, held certain political principles with the tenacity of a 

mathematician, ^uizot's 
He refused to political 

i. 1- i. principles 
recognize that 

France needed any alteration 
in her political institutions. 
He believed in the Charter of 
1 8 14, as revised in 1830. Any 
further reform would be un- 
necessary and dangerous. 
Guizot's policy was one of 
stiff, unyielding conservatism. 
He opposed any extension of 
the suffrage, he opposed any 
legislation for the laboring 
classes, he opposed this, he 
opposed that. All discontent 
appeared to him frivolous, 
fictitious, merely the devious 
device of designing men bent 
on feathering their own nests. 
Year after year this nega- 
tive policy, this policy of mere 

inertia, was pur- 

, \ Guizot's 

sued, arousing policy of 

more and more "^id 
,. (irtri 1 1 1 r 1 -^ ,, conservatism 

disgust. What have they done for the past seven years? 

exclaimed a deputy in 1847, "Nothing, nothing, nothing." "France is 
becoming bored," said Lamartine. Yet this stagnant government was 
living in a world fermenting with ideas, apparently oblivious of the 
fact. The July Monarchy was a government of the bourgeoisie, of the 
well-to-do, of the capitalists. They alone possessed the suffrage. Con- 
sequently, the remainder of the population was, in a political sense, of 
no importance. The legislation enacted during these eighteen years 
was class legislation, which favored the bourgeoisie and which made no 




Guizot 

After a lithograph by Lassalle from the portrait by 

Delaroche. 



294 THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE 

attempt to meet the needs of the masses. Yet the distress of the masses 
was widespread and deep and should have received the careful and sym- 
pathetic attention of the government. 

Their situation provoked discussion and many writers began to 
preach new doctrines concerning the organization of industry and the 
Growth of crucial question of the relations of capital and labor, doc- 
socialism trines henceforth called socialistic, and appealing with in- 
creasing force to the millions of laborers who believed that society 
weighed with unjustifiable severity upon them, that their labor did not 
by any means receive its proportionate reward. St. Simon was the first 
to announce a socialistic scheme for the reorganization of society in the 
interest of the most numerous class. He believed that the state should 
own the means of production and should organize industry on the prin- 
ciple of "Labor according to capacity and reward according to services." 
St. Simon was a speculative thinker, not a practical man of affairs. His 
doctrine gained in direct importance when it was adopted by a man who 
was a politician, able to recruit and lead a party, and to make a pro- 
gramme definite enough to appeal to the masses. Such a man was 
Louis Blanc Louis Blanc, who was destined to play a great part in the 
(1811-1882) overthrow of the July Monarchy and in the Republic that 
succeeded. In his writings he tried to convince the laborers of France 
of the evils of the prevailing economic conditions, a task which was not 
difficult. He denounced in vehement terms the government of the bour- 
geoisie as government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. It must 
be swept away and the state must be organized on a thoroughly demo- 
cratic basis. Louis Blanc proclaimed the right of every man to employ- 
ment and the duty of the state to provide it. This it could do if it would 
organize industry. Let the state establish, with its own capital, national 
workshops, let the workmen manage these and share the profits. The 
class of employers would thus disappear and the laborers would get the 
full result of their labor. Louis Blanc's theories, propounded in a style 
at once clear and vivid, were largely adopted by workingmen, A social- 
ist party was thus created. It believed in a republic; but it differed 
from the other republicans in that, while they desired simply a change 
in the form of government, it desired a far more sweeping change in 
society. 

The amount of discontent with the government of France was great 
and growing. Yet it could accomplish nothing because the ministry 



WIDESPREAD DEMAND FOR REFORMS 295 

was steadily supported by the Chamber of Deputies and that Chamber 

was elected by the two hundred thousand voters. On examination it 

was seen that Guizot obtained his never-failing majority ^, ^ . 

, . , , The Guizot 

by corrupt methods. The electoral assemblies which chose ministry and 

the deputies were so small, frequently consisting of not parliamentary 
more than two hundred members, many of them ofi&ce 
holders, that they could be bribed, in one way or another, to elect depu- 
ties pleasing to the ministry. Then within the Chamber the same meth- 
ods would be used. About two hundred of the four hundred and thirty 
deputies were at the same time office holders. The ministry controlled 
them, as all promotions or increases of salary were dependent upon 
its favor. It needed to gain only a few more votes to have a majority 
and this was easy, as it had so many favors to distribute. 

A reform party thus gradually grew up which did not at all wish 
to overthrow the monarchy but which did demand a change in the 

composition of the Chamber of Deputies and in the manner ^ , , 

^ . 1 1 1 r Demand for 

of electing it, parliamentary reform and electoral reform, electoral and 

Deputies should be forbidden to be at the same time office parliamentary 

'■ , reform 

holders, and the number of voters should be so increased 

that it would be impossible to corrupt them. Against both these propo- 
sitions, renewed year after year, during his entire ministry, Guizot 
resolutely set his face. He asserted that the reform movement was only 
the work of a few, that the people as a whole were entirely indifferent 
to it. To prove the falsity of this assertion the Opposition instituted, 
in 1847, a series of " reform banquets" which were attended The "reform 
by the people and addressed by the reformers. These banquets" 
banquets were instituted by those loyal to the monarchy, but hostile 
to its policy. Similar meetings, however, were instituted by the Repub- 
licans, who were opposed to the very existence of the monarchy. 

Great enthusiasm was aroused by these meetings all over the country. 
It was conclusively shown that the people were behind this demand for 
reform. But the ministry refused to budge and the King denounced 
the agitation as pernicious. He even denied the legal right of the people 
to hold such meetings. To test this right before the courts of law the 
Opposition arranged a great banquet for February 22, 1848, in Paris. 
Eighty-seven prominent deputies promised to attend. All were to meet in 
front of the church of the Madeleine and march to the banquet hall. In 
the night of February 21-22 the Government posted orders forbidding 



296 THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE 

this procession and all similar meetings. Rather than force the issue the 
deputies who had agreed to attend yielded, though under protest. But 
a vast crowd congregated, of students, workingmen, and others. They 
had no leader, no definite purpose'. The crowd committed slight acts 
of lawlessness, but nothing serious happened that day. But in the 
night barricades arose in the workingmen's quarters of the city. Some 
shots were fired. The Government called out the National Guard. It 
refused to march against the insurgents. Some of its members even 
began to shout, " Long live Reform !" " Down with Guizot ! " The King, 
frightened at this alarming development, was willing to grant reform. 
Resignation Guizot would not consent and consequently withdrew from 
of Guizot office. This news was greeted with enthusiasm by the 
crowds and, in the evening of February 23, Paris was illuminated and 
the trouble seemed ended. The contest thus far had been simply be- 
tween Royalists, those who supported the Guizot ministry, and the re- 
formers, and the fall of Guizot was the triumph of the latter. But the 
movement no longer remained thus circumscribed. The Republicans 
now entered aggressively upon the scene, resolved to arouse the excited 
people against Louis Philippe himself and against the monarchy. They 
marched through the boulevards and made a hostile demonstration be- 
fore Guizot's residence. Some unknown person fired a shot at the 
guards. The guards instantly replied, fifty persons fell, more than 
twenty dead. This was the doom of the monarchy. The Republicans 
seized the occasion to inflame the people further. Several of the corpses 
were put upon a cart which was lighted by a torch. The cart was then 
drawn through the streets. The ghastly spectacle aroused everywhere 
the angriest passions; cries of "Vengeance!" followed it along its 
course. From the towers the tocsin sounded its wild and sinister appeal. 

Thus began a riot which grew in vehemence hourly, and which swept 
all before it. The cries of "Long live Reform ! " heard the day before, 
^j^g _ now gave way to the more ominous cries of "Long live 
throw of the Republic ! " Finally, on February 24th, the King ab- 

Phmppe dicated in favor of his grandson, the little Count of Paris, 

and, under the incognito of "Mr. Smith" finally reached 
England. Guizot followed, as did Metternich somewhat later for reasons 
of his own. The King's life of exile was ended two years later by his 
death at Claremont. 

He had abdicated in favor of his grandson, but the Republicans and 



THE PROCLAMATION OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC 297 

Socialists who had forced the abdication would not consent to the con- 
tinuance of the monarchy. They were able to procure ^j^^ ^.j^^ ^^ 
the creation of a Provisional Government, composed of the second 
the leaders of both parties, with Lamartine at its head ^^" '^ 
and Louis Blanc as one of the members. The Provisional Government 
immediately proclaimed the Republic, subject to ratification by the 
people. 

REFERENCES 

The Government of Louis Philippe: Fyffe, History of Modem Europe, pp. 
699-703; Lebon, Modern France, pp. 171-196; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 176-185, 
255-261; Seignobos, Polilical History of Europe Since 1814, PP- 132-152; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. X, Chap. XV; Vol. XI, Chap. II. 

Early French Socialism: Ely, French and German Socialism, pp. 66-71, 108- 
123; Kirkup, History of Socialism, pp. 22-40. 

The February Revolution: Seignobos, pp. 155-159; Andrews, C. M., The His- 
torical Development of Modern Europe, Vol. I, pp. 336-345; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XI, pp. 96-105. 



CHAPIER XVI 
CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

Central Europe at the opening of 1S48 was in a restless, disturbed, 
expectant state. Everywhere men were wearied with the old order 
Th eat "^^^ demanding change. A revolutionary spirit was at 
mid-century work, the public mind in Germany, Italy, and Austria 
uprismg ^^^g excited. Into a society so perturbed and so active 

came the news of the fall of Louis Philippe. It was the spark that set 
the world in conflagration. The French Revolution of 1848 was the 
signal for the most wide-reaching disturbance of the century. Revolu- 
tions broke out from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, from France 
to the Russian frontier. The whole system of reaction, which had 
succeeded Waterloo and which had come to be personified in the 
imperturbable Metternich, crashed in unutterable confusion. The great 
mid-century uprising of the people had begun, the most widespread con- 
vulsion Europe was destined to know until 19 14. The storm center of 
Vienna the this convulsion was Vienna, hitherto the proud bulwark of 
storm center |-]^g established order. Here in the Austrian Empire one 
of the most confused chapters in European history began. It seemed for 
a time as if Austria was doomed to complete disruption, as if she was 
about to disappear as a great state. 

The immediate impulse came from Hungary where for several years 

a nationalistic movement had been in progress. With this tendency 

toward a sharper assertion of the national spirit had been coupled an 

increasingly aggressive reform movement. The institutions of Hungary 

were thoroughly mediaeval. The nobility alone possessed political power, 

at the same time being entirely exempt from taxation. A liberal and 

democratic party, nourished on the ideas of western Europe, had grown 

Louis ^P> ^^^ by Louis Kossuth, one of Hungary's greatest heroes, 

Kossuth. and Francis Deak, whose personality is less striking, but 

(1802-1894) , • . I- 1 ,.11 

wnose services to his country were to be more solid and en- 
during. Kossuth had first come into notice as the editor of a paper 

298 



LOUIS KOSSUTH 



299 



which described in vivid and hberal style the debates in the Hungarian 
Diet. When it was forbidden to print these reports he had them litho- 
graphed. When this was forbidden he had them written out by hand 
by a corps of amanuenses and distributed by servants. Finally he was 
arrested and sentenced to prison. During his iniprisonment of three 
years Kossuth applied him- 
self to serious studies, particu- 
larly to that of the English 
language, with such success 
that he was able later to ad- 
dress large audiences in Eng- 
land and the United States 
with great effect. In 1840 he 
was released and obtained per- 
mission to edit a daily paper. 
Kossuth was the very in- 
carnation of the great demo- 
cratic ideas of the age. He 
wished to erase all distinc- 
tions between noble and non- 
noble, to fuse all into one 
common whole. He demanded 
democratic reforms in every 
department of the national 
life; abolition of the privileges 

of the nobiUty and of their exemption from taxation; equal rights and 
equal burdens for all citizens; trial by jury; reform of the criminal 
code. Kossuth's impassioned appeals were made directly to the people. 
He sought to create, and did create, a powerful public opinion clamor- 
ous for change. This vigorous liberal opposition to the established 
order, an opposition ably led and full of fire, grew rapidly. In 1847 it 
published its programme, drawn up by Deak. This de- 
manded the taxation of the nobles, the control by the demands of 

Diet of all national expenditures, larger liberty for the *® ^"°^/" „ 
,^ . . 1 . nans in 1847 

press, and a complete right of public meetmg and associa- 
tion; it demanded also that Hungary should not be subordinate to 
Austrian policy, and to the Austrian provinces. Such was the situation 
when the great reform wave of 1848 began to sweep over Europe. 




Louis Kossuth. 



300 CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

The effect of the news of the fall of Louis Philippe was electrifying. 
The passion of the hour was expressed in a flaming speech by Kossuth, 
who proved himself a consummate spokesman for a people 
decisive in- in revolt. Of impressive presence, and endowed with a 
tervention of wonderful voice, he was revolutionary oratory incarnate, 
ungary ^^ ^ speech in the Diet, March 3, 1848, he voiced the 

feelings of the time, bitterly denouncing the whole system of Austrian 
government. The effect of this speech was immediate and profound, 
not only in Hungary but in Austria proper. Translated into German, 
and published in Vienna, it inflamed the passions of the people. Ten 
days later a riot broke out in Vienna itself, organized largely by students 
and workingmen. The soldiers fired and bloodshed resulted. Barri- 
cades were erected and the people and soldiers fought hand to hand. 
The crowd surged about and into the imperial palace, and invaded the 
The over- ^^^^ ^^ which the Diet was sitting, crying " Down with 
throw of Metternich!" Metternich, who for thirty-nine years had 

Mettermch gtood at the head of the Austrian states, who was the very 
source and fount of reaction, imperturbable, pitiless, masterful, was 
now forced to resign, to flee in disguise from Austria to England, to 
witness his whole system crash completely beneath the onslaught of 
the very forces for which he had for a generation shown contempt. 

The effect produced by the announcement of Metternich's fall was 
prodigious. It was the most astounding piece of news Europe had re- 
ceived since Waterloo. His fall was correctly heralded as the fall of 
a system hitherto impregnable. 

As Hungary, under the spell of Kossuth's oratory, had exerted an 
influence upon Vienna, so now the actions of the Viennese reacted upon 
The March Hungary. The Hungarian Diet, dominated by the reform 
^^^^ and national enthusiasm just unchained and constantly 

fanned by Kossuth, passed on March 15th and the days succeeding 
the famous March Laws, by which the process of reforming and 
modernizing Hungary, which had been going on for some years, 
was given the finishing touch. These celebrated laws represented the 
demands of the Hungarian national party led by Kossuth. They swept 
away the old aristocratic political machinery and substituted a mod- 
ern democratic constitution. Feudal dues were abolished, and liberty 
of the press, religious liberty, trial by jury were established. The March 
Laws also demanded a separate Hungarian ministry, composed exclu- 



REVOLUTIONS IN AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA 301 

sively of Hungarians. All this was conceded by Austria under the com- 
pulsion of dire necessity (March 31). 

The example of Hungary was speedily followed by Bohemia. Here 
there were two races: the Germans, wealthy, educated, but a minority, 
and the Czechs, a branch of the great Slavic race, poorer. Revolution 
but a majority, ambitious to make Bohemia a separate ^ Bohemia 
state, subject only to the Emperor. The Bohemians demanded (March 
19) practically the same things that the Hungarians had demanded. 
The Emperor conceded them. 

The Austrian provinces west of Vienna made somewhat similar 

demands. These too were granted, of course because of the helplessness 

of the government. That helplessness was due chiefly 

• • 1 • • • T 1 T^ IT,- 11 Revolution 

to the critical situation in Italy. For the Italians had in the 

seized the propitious moment to attempt the overthrow Austrian 

. . . provinces, 

of Austrian influence in Italy. Lombardy and Venetia 

rose against the hated foreigner. Venice, under the inspiring leadership 

of Daniel Manin, restored the republic which Napoleon 

had suppressed after his first campaign. Piedmont threw renounces 

in its lot with these rebels and sent its army forward to Austram 

control 
aid in the war of liberation. So did other Italian states, 

under popular pressure, Tuscany, the Papal States, . Naples. At the 

same time several of these states gained liberal constitutions. Italy had 

thus practically declared her independence. 

Meanwhile there were March Days in Germany, too. The King of 
Prussia promised a constitution, intimidated thereto by an uprising of 
the people of Berlin, which was marked by the erection of Revolution 
barricades, great turbulence, and some bloodshed. He also "^ Germany 
promised to lead in the attempt to achieve unity for Germany. Pre- 
liminary steps were immediately taken to bring this about by a great 
German National Assembly or Parliament, popularly elected for the 
purpose. This Assembly met two months later in Frankfort amid the 
high hopes of the people. Constitutions were granted by their princes 
to several German states. 

Thus by the end of March, 1848, revolution, universal in its range, 
was everywhere successful. The famous March Days had The March 
demolished the system of government which had held sway ever ^hT 
in Europe for a generation. Throughout the Austrian triumphant 
Empire, in Germany and in Italy the revolution was triumphant. 



302 CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

Hungary and Bohemia had obtained sweeping concessions; a consti- 
tution had been promised the Austrian provinces; several Italian states 
had obtained constitutions; the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom had de- 
clared itself independent of Austria, and the rest of Italy was mov- 
ing to support the rebels; a constitution had been promised Prussia, and 
a convention was about to meet to give liberty and unity to Germany. 

But the period of triumph was brief. At the moment of greatest 
humiliation Austria began to show remarkable powers of recovery. In 
the rivalries of her races, and in her army lay her salvation, 
begins the The Government won its first victory, not in Italy, which 
work of ^as lY^Q critical point, but in Bohemia. There, in March, 

the Germans and the Czechs had worked together for the 
acquisition of the reforms described above. But shortly serious differ- 
ences drove the two races apart. These racial animosities, vigorously 
fanned by designing individuals, resulted in a clash between Germans 
and Czechs in the streets of Prague. Windischgratz, commander of 
Bohemia the imperial troops in Prague, seized this occasion to bom- 

conquered bard the city (June, 1848). He subdued it and became 
dictator. The army had won its first victory, and that, too, by taking 
advantage of the bitter racial antagonisms in which the Austrian 
Empire so abounded. 

In Italy also the army was victorious. The Italians, after the first 
flush of enthusiasm, began to be torn by. jealousies and dissensions. The 
j^^ rulers of Tuscany, Naples, and the Papal States deserted 

partially the national cause, leaving Charles Albert of Piedmont, 

conquere ^^^ ^-^^ Lombard rebels, alone confronting the Austrians 

under Radetzky, a man who had served with credit in every Aus- 
trian war for sixty years and who now, at the age of eighty-two, was to 
increase his reputation. Radetzky defeated Charles Albert at Custozza, 
on July 25, 1848, and then agreed to an armistice of several months, ex- 
pecting to complete his work later. Thus by the middle of the summer 
of 1848 the Austrian government was again in the saddle in Bohemia, 
and had partially recovered its power in Italy. It was only waiting for 
. an opportunity to win back the ground it had lost in 

dissension Hungary. The opportunity came with the outbreak of 

i? civil dissension in that country. The racial and national 

Hungary . , -' 

rivalries rose to the highest pitch. The Magyars, though 
a minority of the whole people, had always been dominant and the vie- 



ILLIBERAL ATTITUDE OF THE MAGYARS 303 

tory of March had been their victory. But the national feeHng was 
strong and growing with Serbs, Croatians, and Roumanians. These, 
in the summer of 1848, demanded of the Hungarian Diet much the same 
privileges which the Magyars had won for themselves from the Vienna 
government. They wished local self-government and the recognition 
of their own languages and peculiar customs. To this the Magyars 
would not for a moment consent. They intended that there should be 
but one nationality in Hungary — that of the Magyars. Individual 
civil equality should be guaranteed to all the inhabitants of the kingdom 
of whatever race, but no separate or partly separate nations, and no 
other official language than their own. They, therefore, refused these 
demands point-blank. As a consequence, the bitterest race hatreds 
broke out in this Hungarian state, whose power had been so recently 
established and was so lightly grounded. 

The Magyars would not grant to others the fundamental right which 
they had long so stoutly asserted for themselves, and which after vig- 
orous struggles they had won, the right of nationality. They began, 
indeed, forthwith a policy of oppression, a policy of Magyarization, of 
compressing all these various peoples into one common mould, of for- 
cible assimilation. This has ever since been the open sore in Hungarian 
politics. 

The Magyars insisted that the Magyar language should be taught 
in all the schools in Croatia and should be used in all ofhcial com- 
munications between that province and the central gov- Austria ex- 
ernment in Budapest. The Croatians resented this pioits the 
uncompromising and ungenerous policy and their resent- ^^ "^ °° 
ment rapidly became rebellion. The Austrian government saw in this 
dissension the chance to regain its lost control. By indirect and tortuous 
methods it fanned this racial hatred, hoping to profit from the anger of 
the Magyars against the Slavs and of the Slavs against the Magyars. 
Needless to say the tension between Hungary and Austria increased 
daily. Finally in September, 1848, matters were precipitated when Jella- 
chich, a man who hated the Hungarians with a deep and abiding hatred, 
and who had been appointed by the Austrian Emperor as governor of 
Croatia, began a civil war by leading an army of Croatians and Serbs 
against the Magyars. The Magyars, the dominant class in Hungary, 
were resolved to maintain their position against the rebellious Slavs and, 
if Austria supported them, against Austria herself. 



304 



CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 



On its side the reactionary party in Austria, emboldened by the 
paitial successes of the army in Bohemia and Italy, resolved to tighten 
Accession of ^^^ S^^P ^P°^ ^^^ State. First it forced the Emperor Fer- 
Francis dinand to abdicate. He was succeeded December 2, 1848, 

Joseph I j^y j^jg nephew Francis Joseph I, a lad of eighteen, destined 

to a long and eventful reign. 
The purpose of this manoeuvre was 
to permit by a show of legality the 
abrogation of the March Laws in 
Hungary. Promises made by Fer- 
dinand, it was held, were not bind- 
ing upon his successor, and the 
promises of March were hence- 
forth to be repudiated. Matters 
went rapidly from bad to worse. 
Austria prepared to subdue Hun- 
gary as she had subdued Bohemia. 
Hungary stiffened for the conflict. 

Thus it came about that the 
year 1849 saw a great war in 
Hungary. The Hungarians, in a 
frenzy of excitement, led by Kos- 
Hungarian SUth, tOok the mo- 

Declaration mentOUS Step of 
of Independ- 
ence (April declarmg that the 
14, 1849) House of Hapsburg, 

as false and perjured, had ceased to rule; and that Hungary was an inde- 
pendent nation. Kossuth was appointed President of the indivisible 
state of Hungary. While the word republic was not uttered, such 
would probably be the future form of government if the Hungarians 
succeeded in achieving their independence. 

But this was not to be. The ungenerous conduct of the Magyars 
toward the other races in Hungary now received is natural reward. 
War in Not only did the Hungarian armies have to face Austrian 

Hungary troops but they had to fight the Slavs of Hungary who, 

eager for revenge, aided the Austrians. The Hungarians achieved some 
victories despite these odds, but their action in declaring their country 
independent complicated the situation disastrously. The matter be- 




Francis Joseph I 
At the time of his accession. 



THE WAR IN HUNGARY 305 

came international. Foreign intervention brought this turbulent chap- 
ter abruptly to a close. The young Francis Joseph I made an appeal 
for aid to the Czar of Russia. Nicholas I showed the greatest alacrity 
in responding. The reasons that determined him were various. He 
was both by temperament and conviction predisposed to aid his fellow- 
sovereigns against revolutionary movements, if asked. He was an 
autocrat and interested in the preservation of autocracy wherever it 
existed. Also he had no desire to see a great republic on his very 
borders. Furthermore, a successful Hungary might make a restless 
Poland. Many Poles were fighting in the Hungarian armies. 

Russian troops, variously estimated at from 100,000 to 200,000, 
now poured into Hungary from the east and north. The Austrians 
again advanced from the west. The Hungarians fought Hungary 
brilliantly and recklessly, urged on by the eloquence of conquered 
Kossuth. They sought the aid of the Turks but did not receive it. 
They even appealed to the Slavs, promising them in adversity the rights 
they had refused in prosperity, but in vain. The overwhelming numbers 
of their opponents rendered the struggle hopeless. Kossuth resigned 
in favor of Gorgei, a leading general. The latter was forced to capitu- 
late at Vilagos, August 13, 1849. The war of Hungarian independence 
was over. Kossuth and others fled to Turkey, where they were given 
refuge. Nicholas proudly handed over to Francis Joseph his trouble- 
some Hungary, which Austria, if left to her own resources, woiild prob- 
ably have been unable to conquer. ■ The punishment meted out to the 
Hungarians had no quality of mercy in it. Many generals and civilians 
were hanged. The constitutional privileges were entirely abolished. 
Hungary became a mere province of Austria, and was crushed beneath 
the iron heel. The catastrophe of 1849 seemed the complete annihila- 
tion of that country. 

Meanwhile Italy also had been reconquered by the revived military 
power of Austria. As we have seen, the Italian campaign of 1848 against 
Austria had been led by Charles Albert, King of Sardinia. ^^^ conquest 
He had not been successful and had been forced to sign of Italy 
an armistice at Custozza in August. But there were many *^°™^ ^ ^ 
republicans in Italy who believed that Charles Albert had been only 
half-hearted, that Italy could never be saved by constitutional mon- 
archists. These republicans now decided to carry out their own views. 
They effected revolutions in both Florence and Rome and declared both 



3o6 CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

of those states republics. The Grand Duke of Tuscany fled to the 
Kingdom of Naples, as did the Pope. The temporal power of the Pope 
was abolished. 

The result of all these changes was that when the armistice was 
over and Charles Albert took the field in the spring of 1849 against 
Austria he took it alone. The republicans were neither able nor dis- 
posed to aid him. The Italians at this critical moment were divided 
among themselves. Had they been united they would have had diffi- 
culty enough in their struggle for independence. As it was, the case 
was hopeless. No help came to Charles Albert from the states to the 
south of Piedmont. At Novara, March 23, 1849, the Sardinian army 

.^,. ,. was utterlv overthrown. The King himself sought death 

Abdication ^ ^^ ° "^ 

of Charles on the battlefield, but in vam. Even death has cast me 
^^^■^ off," he said. Believing that better terms could be made 

for his country if another sovereign were on the throne, he abdicated 
in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, whose reign, begun in the 
darkest adversity, was destined to be glorious. Passing into exile, 
Charles Albert died a few months later. He had rendered, however, a 
great service to his house and to Italy, for he had shown that there was 
one Italian prince who was willing to risk everything for the national 
cause. He had enUsted the interest and the faith of the Italians in the 
government of Piedmont, in the House of Savoy. He was looked upon 
as a martyr to the national cause. 

In the succeeding months the republics of Florence, Rome, and 
Venice were, one after the other, overthrown. The radiant hopes of 
Overthrow ^^4^ ^^^ withered fast. A cruel reaction soon held sway 
of the throughout most of the peninsula. The power of Austria 

repu ics ^^g restored, greater apparently than ever. Piedmont 

alone preserved a real independence, but was for the time being crushed 
beneath the burdens of a disastrous war and a humiliating peace. 

Meanwhile the victories of the Liberals in Germany were being suc- 
ceeded by defeats. Their hope had centered in the deliberations of the 
The Pariia- Parliament of Frankfort, consisting of nearly six hundred 
ment of representatives, elected by universal suffrage. The as- 

sembly was composed of many able men, but it possessed 
only a moral authority. Though its existence had not been pre- 
vented by the rulers of the various states, because they had not 
dared to oppose what the people so plainly desired, still those rulers 



THE PARLIAMENT OF FRANKFORT 307 

gave it no positive support and played a waiting game, hoping to be 
able to prevent the execution of any decisions unfavorable to them- 
selves. The Frankfort Parliament had been summoned in response to 
a popular demand for a real German nation, in place of the hollow mock- 
ery of the Confederation established in 181 5 at Vienna. It was expected 
to draw up a constitution and it was also expected that this constitu- 
tion would be democratic. Its aim was to achieve not only German 
unity but German political freedom, popular government in place of 
government by absolute monarchs or privileged classes. It was hoped 
that a great free German state would issue from its deliberations, unity 
resting upon a large measure of democracy. 

The task was very difficult for various reasons. The union must 
be federal because there were nearly forty states in Germany, each 
with its own history, its own traditions, its own dynasty, why the 

its own fears of the others. Moreover, a federation is Problem of 

German 
difficult even between states that are equal in political unity was so 

development, and the political development of the German ^ifficu't 
states was unequal. Some states possessed constitutions and parlia- 
ments and the people had had some experience in self-government. 
But the leading states, Prussia and Austria, had none of those things 
and were in their political development backward. Moreover these 
two states were rivals and neither was willing to sacrifice its identity 
and power for any such thing as a common German fatherland. There 
can be no federation without a sacrifice of power by the states entering 
it. Moreover the governing classes of both of these states hated every- 
thing that savored of democracy. 

The Frankfort Parliament failed and the two streams of tendency, 
so characteristic of the century, the tendency toward unity and the 
tendency toward democracy were dammed up for a long while in Ger- 
many. Indeed the tendency toward democracy has remained dammed 
up to this very day. While unity was -achieved a generation later, popu- 
lar self-government has not yet been achieved. 

The Parliament failed, to some extent because of the mistakes of 
its members, but chiefly because of the resolute opposition Hostility of 
of the princes of Germany, and, in particular, of Prussia ^^f German 
and Austria. It however succeeded in drafting a consti- unity and 
tution of many high merits, a constitution nobly planned, democracy 
which guaranteed civil liberty to every German, equality before the 



3o8 CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

law, responsible parliamentary control for the central government 
and for the government of the separate states. It was decided 
that the new German nation should have the same boundaries as 
the old Confederation, a decision which displeased Austria as she 
wished to be included with all her territories, not with simply a part 
of them. A most important question was what should be the form of 
the new government and who should be the executive? Should there 
be an emperor or a president or a board, and if an emperor, should 
his office be hereditary, or for life, or for a term of years? Should 
he be the monarch of Prussia or Austria, or should first one and then 
the other rule? The final decision was that Gerrhany should be an 
hereditary empire, and on March 28, 1849, the King of Prussia was 
chosen to be its head. Austria announced curtly that she "would 
neither let herself be expelled from the German Confederation, nor let 
her German provinces be separated from the indivisible monarchy." 

The center of interest now shifted to Berlin, whither a delegation 
went to offer to Frederick William IV the imperial crown of a united 
Germany. Would he accept it? If he would, the new scheme to which 
twenty-eight minor states had already assented would go into force, 
though this might involve a war with Austria, by this time largely re- 
covered from her various troubles. Frederick William IV had declared 
in 1847 that he was willing to settle the German question, "with Austria, 
without Austria, yes, if need be, against Austria." Now, however, he 
was in a very different mood. He declined the offer of the Frankfort 
Parliament. The reasons were varied. Austria protested that she would 
never accept a subordinate position, and this protest alarmed him. 
And he disliked the idea of receiving a crown from a revolutionary 
assembly; rather, in his opinion, ought such a gift to come from his 
equals, the princes of Germany. 

Thus the two great German powers, Austria and Prussia, rejected 
the work of the Frankfort Parliament. Rebuffed in such high quarters. 
Rejection of that body was unable to impose its constitution upon 
*>!^ p""^^ °^ Germany, and it finally ended its existence wretchedly, 
fort Pariia- In session for over a year it accomplished nothing. But 
™^°* the responsibility for the failure of Germans to achieve a 

real unity in 1848 and 1849 rests primarily not with it, but with the 
rulers of Prussia and Austria. 

The collapse of the Frankfort Parliament was a bitter disappoint- 



THE PARLIAMENT OF FRANKFORT 



309 




o o 



3IO CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

ment. It drove a number of the more radical Germans to a bold and 
desperate attempt to establish a republic by force of arms, since these 
monarchs of Germany spurned the work of the Parliament. 

An insurrection broke out in southwest Germany, a section devoted 
to the cause of liberty. The regular troops of Baden joined the insur- 
A repubUcan gents, and the movement spread down the Rhine. "Some 
rising of the noblest and most generous spirits in Germany were 

to be found in this last and most desperate venture to maintain the 
cause of liberal unity against the sinister opposition of the German 
crowns. It was all in vain. Democratic idealism fell, not for the first 
or last time, before the trained battalions of Prussia." ^ The republi- 
cans were shot down or dispersed by Prussian troops in May, 1849. 
The republican party in Germany has never recovered from this blow. 

For men who held democratic and republican ideas and ideals in- 
tensely there was no hope in Germany. Many, not willing to abandon 
their convictions, their belief in liberty, not wishing to 
^"oeman ^^^^ under a regime which denied the most elementary 
Liberals to rights to individuals, moreover not safe in such states and 
States"^^*^ not desired, had only the sad resource of leaving the land 
of their birth, esteeming liberty more precious than • sub- 
jection to absolute monarchs. One of these was Carl Schurz, a Prussian, 
whose part in the revolution of 1848 was most romantic and honorable. 
He, like many others, emigrated to the United States, with a heavy 
heart, because he beheved that the cause of liberty was lost in Germany 
and in Europe, and that he had to make the poignant choice between 
liberty and his native land. Great was the gain of America. If these 
men could not have democratic institutions at home they would find 
them in the New World and could enjoy the opportunities they ensure. 
The King of Prussia had refused the headship of a united Ger- 
many offered him by the Frankfort Parliament and had thus rendered 
its labors fruitless. But he now attempted to secure the leadership in 
another way, proposing a union of the purely German states under his 
own direction. This meant the exclusion of Austria, so largely non- 
German in her composition. Most of the smaller states joined this 
Prussian Union (1849). This action brought Prussia into sharp conflict 
with Austria, which had no desire to be edged out of Germany and 
which naturally resented this attempt of Prussia to snatch the leader- 
1 Fisher, The Republican Tradition in Europe, p. 265. 



PRUSSIA'S ELECTORAL SYSTEM 311 

ship away from her. Austria, therefore, having finally set her Hun- 
garian house in order, peremptorily, ordered the King of Prussia 
to abandon his schemes, which he forthwith did. This was the famous 
'humiliation of Olmiitz." Austria then demanded that The"humil- 
the old German Confederation of 1815, which had been iation of 
suspended in 1848, be revived with its Diet at Frank- ™"*^ 
fort. This was done in 185 1. Austria was stronger than ever in the 
Diet. The short-lived Prussian Union was dissolved. 

The permanent results of this mid-century uprising of central Europe 
were very slight. Everywhere the old governments slipped back into 
the old grooves and resumed the old traditions. Two Rgguits of 
states, however, emerged with constitutions which they the revolu- 
k.ept, Sardinia, whose Constitutional Statute granted ^^°°^ ^ 
3y Charles Albert on March 4, 1848, established a real constitu- 
tional and parliamentary government, the only one in Italy; and 
Prussia, whose Constitution issued by the King in its final form in 1850 
tvas far less liberal, yet sufficed to range Prussia among the constitu- 
tional states of Europe. By it the old absolutism of the state was 
:hanged, at least in form. There was henceforth a parliament consist- 
ing of two chambers. In one respect this document was a bitter disap- 
Dointment to all Liberals. In the March Days of 1848 the King had 
aromised universal suffrage, but the Constitution as finally promulgated 
rendered it illusory. It established a system unique in the world. Uni- 
versal suffrage was not withdrawn, but was marvelously 
manipulated. The voters were divided in each electoral three -class 

district throughout Prussia into three classes, according to system of 

° . election 

tvealth. The amount of taxes paid by the district was 

divided into three equal parts. Those voters who paid the first third 
ivere grouped into one class, those, more numerous, who paid the second 
third into another class, those who paid the remainder into still another 
:lass. The result was that a few very rich men were set apart by them- 
selves, the less rich by themselves, and the poor by themselves. Each 
Df these three groups, voting separately, elected an equal number of 
delegates to a convention, which convention chose the delegates of that 
:onstituency to the lower house of the Prussian Parliament. Thus in 
5very electoral assembly two-thirds of the members belonged to the 
wealthy class. There was no chance in such a system for the poor, for 
the masses. This system, established by the Constitution of 1850, still 



312 CENTRAL EUROPE IN REVOLT 

exists in Prussia. It gives an enormous preponderance of political power 
to the rich. The first class consists of very few men, in some districts 
of only one; the second class is sometimes twenty times as numerous; 
the thud sometimes a hundred, or even a thousand times. Thus though 
every man twenty-five years of age has the suffrage, the vote of a single 
rich man may have as great weight as the votes of a thousand work- 
ingmen. Thus is universal suffrage manipulated in such a way as to 
defeat democracy decisively and as to consolidate a privileged class in 
power, in the only branch of the government that has even the appear- 
ance of being liberal. Bismarck, no friend of Liberalism, once charac- 
terized this electoral system as the worst ever created. Its shrieking 
injustice is shown by the fact that in 1900 the Social Democrats, who 
actually cast a majority of the votes, secured only seven seats out of a 
total of nearly four hundred and fifty. 

REFERENCES 

Revolution in Austria: Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, pp. 707-718, 738-770; 
Andrews, Historical Development of Modern Europe, Vol. I, pp. 363-373; Seignobos, The 
Political History of Europe Since 1814, pp. 412-419; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 
XI, pp. 151-156. 

Kossuth: Thayer, W. R., Throne-Makers. 

Revolution of 1848 in Prussia: Henderson, Short History of Germany, Vol. II, 
pp. 348-352; Marriott and Robertson, The Evolution of Prussia, pp. 305-321; Fyffe, 
pp. 719-722, 785-789. 

The Parliament of Frankfort: Henderson, Vol. II, pp. 360-369; Marriott and 
Robertson, pp. 321-330; Fyffe, pp. 725-728, 781-783, 789-799; Priest, Germany 
Since 1740, pp. 91-100. 

The Revolution of 1848 in Italy: Orsi, Modern Italy, pp. 160-215; Cesa- 
resco, Liberation of Italy, pp. 91-164; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 79-95. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC AND THE 
FOUNDING OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 

THE SECOND REPUBLIC 

The Second Republic lasted nominally nearly five years, from Feb- 
ruary 24, 1848, to December 2, 1852, when the Second Empire was 

proclaimed. Practically, however, as we shall see, it came „ 

, 1- T^ , ^ -r^ • Stages in the 

to an end one year earner, December 2, 1851. Durmg history of the 

this period the state was administered successively by the Second 

Republic 
Provisional Government, chosen on February 24th, and 

remaining in power for about ten weeks, then for about a year by the 
National Constituent Assembly, which framed the Constitution of the 
Republic, and then by the President and Legislative Assembly, created 
by this constitution. The history of the Republic was to be a vgry 
troubled one. 

The Provisional Government was from the first composed of two 
elements. The larger number, led by Lamartine, were simply Republi- 
cans, desirous of a republican form of government in place 
of the monarchical. The other element was represented ments in the 

particularly by Louis Blanc who believed in a republic, Provisional 
r ^ ^ 1 T 1 , ... Government 

but as a means to an end, and that end a social, economic 

revolution; who wished primarily to improve the condition of the labor- 
ing classes, to work out in actual laws and institutions the socialistic 
theories propounded with such effectiveness during the later years of 
the reign of Louis Philippe, and particularly the principle represented 
in the famous phrase, "the right to employment." What he most de- 
sired was not a mere political change, but a thoroughgoing reconstruc- 
tion of society in the interest of the largest and weakest class, the poor, 
the wage-earners. 

The Provisional Government, divided as it was into Socialists and 
Anti-Socialists, ran the risk of all coalitions, that of being reduced to 

313 



314 



THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 



impotence by internal dissensions. Conflicts between the two great 
^jjg currents of opinion began on the very day of the procla- 



question of 
the flag 



mation of the Republic. Armed workmen came in im- 
mense numbers to the Hotel de Ville and demanded that 
henceforth the banner of France should be the red flag, emblem of So- 
cialism. Lamartine repelled 
this demand in a speech so 
brilliant and so persuasive 
that the workmen themselves 
stamped upon the red flag. 

But the Government, 
achieving an oratorical vic- 
tory, saw itself forced to yield 
to the socialist party in two 
important respects. On mo- 
tion of Louis Blanc, it recog- 
nized the so-called " right to 
employment." It promised 
work to all citizens, and as a 
means to this end it estab- 
lished, against its own real 
wishes, the famous National 
Workshops. It also estab- 
The Labor Uslied a Labor 
Commission Commission, 
with Blanc at its head and 
with its place of meeting the 
Luxembourg Palace. This 
was a mere debating society, 
a body to investigate economic questions and report to the Govern- 
ment. It had no power of action, or of putting its opinions into exe- 
cution. Moreover, by removing Louis Blanc from the Hotel de Ville 
to another part of Paris, the Government really reduced his influence 
and that of his party. Naturally this irritated the SociaUsts. 

The National Workshops, too, were a source of ultimate disappoint- 
The National ment to those who had looked to them to solve the com- 
Workshops pigx ij^^Qj. problems of the modern industrial system. 
Conceded by the Provisional Government against its will, and to gain 




Lamartine in 1832 
After a lithograph by Chasseriau. 



THE NATIONAL WORKSHOPS 315 

time, that Government did not intend that they should succeed. Their 
creation was intrusted to the Minister of Commerce, Marie, a personal 
enemy of Louis Blanc, who, according to his own admission, was willing 
to make this experiment in order to render the latter unpopular and to 
show workingmen the fallacy of his theories of production, and the 
dangers of such theories for themselves. The scheme was represented 
as Louis Blanc's, though it was denounced by him, was established es- 
pecially to discredit him, and was a Veritable travesty of his ideas. 
Blanc wished to have every man practice his own trade in real factories, 
started by state aid. They should be engaged in productive enterprises; 
moreover, only men of good character should be permitted to join these 
associations. Instead of this, the Government simply set men of the 
most varied sorts — cobblers, carpenters, metal workers, masons, to 
labor upon unproductive tasks, such as making excavations for public 
works. They were organized in a military fashion, and the wages were 
uniform, two francs a day. 

It was properly no system of production that was being tried, but 
a system of relief for the unemployed, who were very mmierous owing 
to the fact that many factories had had to close because Their rapid 
of the generally disturbed state of affairs. The number of growth 
men flocking to these National Workshops increased alarmingly: 25,000 
in the middle of March; 66,000 in the middle of April; over 100,000 in 
May. As there was not work enough for all, the number of working 
days was reduced for each man to two a week, and his total wage for 
the week fixed at eight francs. The result was that large numbers of 
men were kept idle most of the time, were given wretched wages, and 
had plenty of time to discuss their grievances. They furnished excellent 
material for socialist agitators. This experiment wasted the public 
money, accomplished nothing useful, and led to a street war of the most 
appalling kind. 

The Provisional Government was, as the name signified, only a 
temporary organization whose duty was to administer the state until 
an assembly should be elected to frame a Constitution. 
The Provisional Government established universal suf- National 
frage and thus political power passed suddenly from the Constituent 
hands of about two hundred thousand privileged wealthy 
persons to over nine million electors. The elections were held on April 
23, and the National Constituent Assembly met on May 4, 1848. The 



3i6 THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 

assembly consisted of nine hundred men, about eight hundred of them 
moderate Republicans. The Socialists had almost disappeared. 

The Assembly showed at once that it was bitterly opposed to the 
opinions of the Socialists of Paris. The Provisional Government now 
laid down its powers, and the Assembly chose five of its 
Assembly members, all Anti-Socialists, with Lamartine as the head, as 

hostile to i\^Q new executive until the Constitution should be drawn 

up. All these men had been opposed to Louis Blanc. The 
Government, believing that the National Workships were breeding-spots 
of Socialism and dangerous unrest, resolved to root them out. It an- 
Abolition of nounced their immediate abolition, giving the workmen the 
the National alternative of enrolling in the army or going into the 
or s ops country to labor on public works. If they did not leave 
voluntarily, they would be forced to leave. The laborers, goaded to 
desperation, prepared to resist and to overthrow this Government which 
they had helped bring into existence, and which had proved so unsym- 
pathetic. Organized as a semi-military force, angered at the hostility 
of the bourgeoisie to all helpful social reform that could make their lives 
easier, they began a bitter fight. The Assembly saw the terrible nature 
The June of the conflict impending. General Cavaignac was given 
Days dictatorial powers by the Assembly, the Executive Commis- 

mission of five resigning. During four June days (June 23-26, 1848) 
the most fearful street fighting Paris had ever known went on behind a 
baffling network of barricades. The issue was long doubtful, but finally 
the insurgents were put down. The cost was terrible. Ten thousand 
were killed or wounded. Eleven thousand prisoners were taken, and 
their deportation was immediately decreed by the Assembly. The June 
Days left among the poor an enduring legacy of hatred toward the 
bourgeoisie. 

The moderate republicans had definitely triumphed over the social- 
istic republicans. But so narrow had been their escape, so fearful were 
A military they for the future that the dictatorship of Cavaignac 
dictatorship ^as continued until the end of October. Thus the Second 
Repubhc, proclaimed in February, 1848, after ten troubled weeks under 
a Provisional Government, passed under military leadership for the 
next four months. One-man power was rapidly developing. 

The results of this socialist agitation and of the sanguinary Days of 
June were lamentable and far-reaching. The republic was immeasurably 



/ 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC 317 

weakened by this dreadful fratricidal strife. It was gravely wounded 
in the house of its friends. 

After the suppression of the Socialists in June the Assembly pro- 
ceeded to frame the constitution, for which task it had been chosen. It 
proclaimed the Republic as the definitive government of ^jjg framing 
France. It declared universal suffrage. It provided that of the Con- 
there should be a legislature consisting of a single chamber, ^ " ^°° 
composed of 750 members, chosen for three years, to be renewed in 
full at the end of that period 

The executive was to be a president elected for four years and 
ineligible for reelection save after a four years' interval. He was 
given very considerable powers. It was felt that the ^j^^ powers 
danger in giving him these would be neutralized by the of the 
shortness of his term and by his inability to be immedi- 
ately reelected. How he should be chosen was the most important 
question before the Constituent Assembly, and was long debated. 
The Assembly, dominated by its fundamental dogma of universal 
suffrage and popular sovereignty, was disposed to have the president 

chosen by all the voters. The dangel* in this procedure 

. Discussion 

lay m the lack of political experience of the French elec- concerning 

torate, and the probability that they wovild be blinded *® presi- 
by some distinguished or famous name in making their 
choice, not guided by an intelligent analysis of character and of 
fitness for the high office. It was however decided that the people 
should choftse the president and should be entirely untrammeled in 
their choice. In thus leaving the choice of the president to universal 
suffrage, this republican assembly was playing directly into the hands 
of a pretender to a throne, of a man who believed he had the right 
to rule France by reason of his birth, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 
nephew of the Great Napoleon and legitimate heir to his preten- 
sions. At the time of the February Revolution this man was prac- 
tically without influence or significance, but so swiftly did events move 
and opinion shift in that year 1848 that by the time the mode of choos- 
ing the president was decided upon, he was already known to be a 
leading candidate, a fact which stamped that decision as all the more 
foolhardy. 

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte had become chief of the house of Bona- 
parte in 1832 at the age of twenty-four, on the death of Napoleon's son, 



3i8 THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 

known as the "King of Rome." He was the son of Louis, the former 

, . Kine of Holland. He conceived his position with utmost 

Louis ^ 

Napoleon seriousness. He believed that he had a right to rule over 

Bonaparte France, and that the day would come when he would. 
He adhered to this belief for sixteen years, though those years brought 
him no practical encouragement, but only the reverse. Gathering about 
him a few adventurers, he attempted in 1836, at Strassburg, and in 1840, 
at Boulogne, to seize power. Both attempts were puerile in their con- 
ception, and were bunglingly executed. Both ended in fiasco. He had 
gained the name of being ridiculous, a thing exceedingly difficult for 
Frenchmen to forgive or forget. As a result of the former attempt he 
had been exiled to the United States, from which country he shortly 
returned. As a result of the latter he was imprisoned in the fortress of 
Ham in northern France, from which he escaped in 1846, disguised as 
an ordinary mason, named Badinguet. He then went to England and 
in 1848, at the time of the Chartist risings, he was a special constable 
stationed in Trafalgar Square. This was certainly no record of achieve- 
ment. But the stars in their courses were fighting for him. The Revolu- 
tion of 1848 created his opportunity, as that of 1789 had created that of 
the First Napoleon. Like his great prototype, whom he constantly sought 
to imitate, he offered his services to the Republic. He was elected a 
member of the Constituent Assembly, where the impression he created 

was that of a mediocre man, with few ideas of his own, 
A member 
of the who could probably be controlled by others. His name, 

Constituent however, was a name to conjure with. This was his only 

capital, but it was sufficient. The word Naploeon was 

seen to be a marvelous vote-winner with the peasants, who, now that 

universal suffrage was the law of the land, formed the great majority. 

"How should I not vote for this gentleman," said a peasant to Monta- 

lembert, " I whose nose was frozen at Moscow?" Louis Napoleon was 

A candidate ^^ avowed candidate for the presidency, and, as the most 

for the colorless, was the strongest. Cavaignac was the candidate 

presi ency ^^ ^-^^ democratic Republicans, who had governed France 

since February, but he was now hated by the workingmen for his part 

in the June Days. Thus when the presidential election was held in 

December, 1848, Louis Napoleon was overwhelmingly chosen with over 

five milUon votes- to Cavaignac's million and a half. The new President 

entered upon his duties December 20, 1848. On that day before the 



THE COUP D'ETAT OF 1851 319 

Assembly he swore "to remain faithful to the democratic republic," 
and said: "My duty is clear. I will fulfil it as a man of honor. I shall 
regard as enemies of the country all those who endeavor to change by 
illegal means that which France has established." He kept his oath 
for nearly three years and then he broke it, because he wished to remain 
in power, having no desire to retire to private life; yet the Constitution 
forbade the reelection of the president at the end of the four-year term. 
Louis Napoleon therefore took a leaf out of the biography of Napoleon 
I, and climbed to power by carrying through a coup d'etat, far more skill- 
fully than his uncle had engineerea that of the igth of Brumaire. 

The 2d of December, 185 1, anniversary of the coronation of Napo- 
leon I and of the battle of Austerlitz, was chosen as the fateful day. 
During the early morning hours many of the military and The 
civil leaders of France, republican and monarchist, were ^°"P d'etat 
arrested in bed and taken to prison. A battalion of infantry was sent 
to occupy the Legislative Chamber. Placards were posted on all the 
walls of Paris, pretending to explain the President's purposes, which 
included a remodeling of the constitution in the direction of the system 
established by Napoleon I at the time of the Consulate. "This system, 
created by the First Consul at the beginning of the century, has already 
given to France repose and prosperity; it will guarantee them to her 
again." The people were called upon to approve or disapprove these 
suggestions. 

The significance of all this was at first not apparent to those who 
read the placards. But signs of opposition began to show themselves 
as their meaning became clearer. Some of the deputies. Events of 
going to their hall of meeting, found entrance prevented I>ecember 2 
by the military. Withdrawing to another place, and proceeding to 
impeach the President, they were attacked by the troops, who arrested 
a large number, and took them off to prison. Thus the leaders of France, 
civil and military, were in custody, and the President saw no organized 
authority erect before him. This was the work of December 2. Would 
the people resent the high-handed acts of this usurper? 

The President had not neglected to make unprecedented prepara- 
tions for this contingency. His police controlled all the printing estab- 
lishments, whence usually in periods of crisis emerged flaming appeals 
to revolt; also all the bell towers, whence in revolutionary times the 
tocsin was accustomed to ring out the appeal to insurrection. Never- 



320 THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 

theless, on the 3d, barricades were raised. On the 4th occurred the 

famous "massacre of the boulevards." Over 150 were killed and a 

large number wounded. Paris was cowed. The coup d'etat 

.. massacre was crowned with success. To prevent any possible rising 

of the Qf i\^Q provinces martial law was proclaimed in thirty- 

l)oul6V8xds " 

two departments, thousands of arbitrary arrests were made, 

and the work on which the Prince President entered on the night of 
December 2d was thoroughly carried out. Probably a hundred thou- 
sand arrests were made throughout France. All who appeared dangerous 
to Louis Napoleon were either transported, exiled, or imprisoned. This 
vigorous policy was aimed particularly at the Republicans, who were 
for years completely silenced. 

Having thus abolished all opposing leadership, Louis Napoleon ap- 
pealed to the people for their opinion as to intrusting him with power 
The to remodel the Constitution along the lines indicated in 

plebiscite j^jg proclamation. On December 20, 7,439,216 voted in 

favor of so doing, and only 640,737 voted in the negative. While the 
election was in no sense fair, while the issue presented was neither clear 
nor simple, while force and intimidation were resorted to, yet it was 
evident that a large majority of Frenchmen were willing to try again 
the experiment of a Napoleon. 

The Republic, though officially continuing another year, was now 

dead. Louis Napoleon, though still nominally President, was in fact 

_ , an absolute sovereign. It was a mere detail when a year 

mpoleon ° -^ 

m, Em- later (November 21, 1852) the people of France were per- 

a^'^issa^^^* initted to vote on the question of reestablishing the impe- 
rial dignity, and of proclaiming Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
emperor, under the name of Napoleon III. 7,824,189 Frenchmen voted 
yes; 253,145 voted no. On the anniversary of the coup d'etat, Decem- 
ber 2, a day so fortunate for Bonapartes, Napoleon III was proclaimed 
Emperor of the French, and the Second Empire was established. 

THE SECOJ^D EMPIRE 

The President who, by the endless witchery of a name, by a profit- 
able absence of scruples, and by favorable circumstances, had known 
how to become an Emperor, was destined to be the ruler of France 
and a leading figure in European politics for eighteen years. He an- 
nounced at the outset that what France needed, after so turbulent a 



THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE EMPIRE 



321 



The political 
institutions 
of the 
Empire 



history, was government by an enlightened and benevolent despot. 
Then when the necessary work of reorganization had been 
carried through and the national life was once more in a gramme of 
healthy state, the autocratic would give way to a liberal ^^ ^^^ 
form of government which the country would then be in a 
condition to manage and enjoy. As a matter of fact the history of the 

Second Empire falls into 
these two divisions — auto- 
cracy unlimited from 1852 to 
i860, and a growing liberal- 
ism from i860 to 1870, when 
the Empire collapsed, its pro- 
gramme woefully unrealized. 
The political institutions 
of the Empire were largely 
based on those 
of the Consulate. 
The machinery 
was elaborate 
but was mainly designed to 
deceive the French . people 
into thinking that they en- 
joyed self-government. The 
principle of universal suffrage 
was preserved but was ingen- 
iously rendered quite harm- 
less to the autocrat. There was a Legislative Body and there was a 
Senate, but their powers were very slight. The important fact was not 
the activity of these various bodies but of the one man. France was 
no longer a land of freedom. Since 181 5 under the various regimes 
Parliament had been a serious factor in the life of the nation and men 
had had a training in poUtical affairs. That promising development 
was now abruptly stopped. Repression was the order of the day. Par- 
ticular ruthlessness was shown in the policy of crushing the republi- 
cans, as Napoleon III had a very clear instinct that they would never 
forgive him for overthrowing by violence the Republic which had honored 
him with its highest office and which he had solemnly sworn to protect 
from all enemies. 




N.\POLEON III 



322 THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 

In politics a despot and a reactionary, stamping out every possible 

spark of independence, Napoleon was, however, in many other ways 

progressive. Particularly did he seek to develop the wealth 
The Empire ^^ ^ ^ j i • • jr • 

both repres- of the country and his reign was one of increasing economic 

sive and prosperity; manufactures, commerce, banking, all were 

progressive g^-gg^^jy encouraged. It was a period of great business enter- 
prises and fortunes were made quickly, and of a size hitherto unknown 
in France. Paris was modernized and beautified on a most elaborate 
scale and became the most attractive and comfortable capital in Europe. 
In 1853 Napoleon III married a young Spanish lady of remarkable 
beauty and of n,oble birth, Mile. Eugenie de Montijo, "a marriage of 
love" as the Emperor told the French people. The Tuileries imme- 
diately became the center of a court life the most brilliant and luxurious 
of the nineteenth century. 

In 1856 Napoleon III was at the zenith of his power. The Empire 
had been recognized by all the other states of Europe. The Emperor 
^jjg had, with England and Piedmont as allies, waged a suc- 

Congress of cessful war against Russia in the Crimea.^ He was supposed 
^"^' to have the best army in Europe, and he was honored 

in the face of all the world by having Paris chosen as the seat of 
the congress which drew up the treaties at the end of that war. And 
now an heir was born to him, the Prince Imperial, as interesting in his 
day and as ill-fated as the King of Rome had been in his. Fortune 
seemed to have emptied her full horn of plenty upon the author of the 
coup d'etat. 

But the Empire had already reached its apogee, though this wag 
not evident for some time. Had Napoleon limited his activity to the 
The foreign improvement and development of conditions at home his 
policy of reign might have continued successful and advantageous. 

But he adopted a showy and risky foreign policy, whose 
consequences he did not foresee and which in the end entangled him in 
hopeless embarrassments and led directly to the violent and tragic over- 
throw of his Empire and the endless humiliation and suffering of France. 
The foreign policy reacted, after i860, upon the home policy in a decided 
manner. The beginning of Napoleon's serious troubles was his partici- 
pation in the Italian war of 1859. 

To understand the course of the Second Empire from i860 to 1870 
1 See Chapter XXXIII. 



THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 



323 




Empress Eugenie 
After the painting by Winterhalter. 



324 



THE SECOND FRENCH REPUBLIC 



one must study the part played by Napoleon III in the making of modern 
Italy, the consequences of which were to be for him so unexpected, so 
far-reaching, and in the end so disastrous. And correctly to appraise 
that policy we must first trace the history of the rise of the Kingdorii 
of Italy. 

REFERENCES 

The Second Republic: Fisher, The Republican Tradition in Europe, Chap. VIII, 
pp. 202-228; Lebon, Modern France, Chap. XI, pp. 261-290; Cambridge Modern 
History, Vol. XI, Chap. V, pp. 96-141. 

The Napoleonic Legend: Fisher, Bonapartism, Chap. IV, pp. 64-79. 

Early Life of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte: Forbes, A., Life of Napoleon ihe 
Third, pp. 1-58. 

The Strassburg and Boulogne Incidents: Forbes, pp. 59-107. 

The Coup d'Etat: Murdock, Reconstruction of Europe, Chap. II, pp. 7-15; Forbes, 
Chap. VIL pp. 127-148; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 134-141. 

The Early Years of the Empire: Fisher, pp. 80-99. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THE MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

Italy as we have seen was a land of small states, of arbitrary govern- 
ment, and of Austrian domination. The spirit of nationality, the spirit 
of freedom were nowhere recognized. Indeed, every effort j^^jy lacking 
was made to stamp them out whenever they appeared, in unity and 
Thus far these efforts had been -successful. They were 
now about to break down utterly and a noble and stirring movement 
of reform was to sweep over the peninsula in triumph, completely trans- 
forming and immensely enriching a land which, greatly endowed by 
nature, had been sadly treated by man. 

The deepest aspirations of the Italian people had finally found a 
voice, clear, bold, and altogether thrilling, in the person of Joseph Maz- 
zini. Mazzini was the spiritual force of the Italian Risor- jq^^^yi 
gimcnto or resurrection, as this national movement was Mazzini 
called, the prophet of a state that was not yet but was to 
be, destined from youth to feel with extraordinary intensity a holy 
mission imposed upon him. He was born in 1805 in Genoa, his father 
being a physician and a professor in the university. Even in his boy- 
hood he was morbidly impressed with the unhappiness and misery of 
his country. "In the midst of the noisy, tumultuous life of the students 
around me I was," he says, in his interesting though fragmentary auto- 
biography, "somber and absorbed and appeared like one suddenly 
grown old. I childishly determined to dress always in black, fancying 
myself in mourning for my country." 

As Mazzini grew up all his inclinations were toward a literary life. 
"A thousand visions of historical dramas and romances floated before 
my mental eye." But this dream he abandoned, "my first great sacri- 
fice," for political agitation. He joined the Carbonari, not because he 
approved even then of their methods, but because at least they were a 
revolutionary organization. As a member of it, he was arrested in 1830. 
The governor of Genoa told Mazzini's father that his son was "gifted 

325 



326 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

with some talent," but was "too fond of walking by himself at night 
His impris- absorbed in thought. What on earth has he at his age to 
onment think about? We don't like young people thinking without 

our knowing the subject of their thoughts." Mazzini was imprisoned 
in the fortress of Savona. Here he could only see the sky and the sea, 
"the two grandest things in Nature, except the Alps," he said. After 
sk months he was released, but was forced to leave his country. For 
nearly all of forty years he was to lead the bitter life of an exile in France, 
in Switzerland, but chiefly in England, which became his second home. 
After his release from prison Mazzini founded in 1831 a society, 
"Young Italy," destined to be an important factor in making the new 
F d r of Italy. The Carbonari had led two revolutions and had 
"Young failed. Moreover, he disliked that organization as being 

* ^ merely destructive in its aim, having no definite plan of 

reconstruction. "Revolutions," he said, "must be made by the people 
and for the people." His own society must be a secret organization; 
otherwise it would be stamped out. But it must not be merely a body 
of conspirators; it must be educative, proselyting, seeking to win Ital- 
ians by its moral and intellectual fervor to an idealistic view of life, a 
self-sacrificing sense of duty. Only those under forty were to be ad- 
mitted to membership, because his appeal was particularly to the young. 
"Place youth at the head of the insurgent multitude," he said; "you 
know not the secret of the power hidden in these youthful hearts, nor 
the magic iniiuence exercised on the masses by the voice of youth. You 
will find among the young a host of apostles of the new religion." With 
Mazzini the liberation and unification of Italy was indeed a new reli- 
Tljg gion, appealing to the loftiest emotions, entailing complete 

methods of self-sacrifice, complete absorption in the ideal, and the 
e socie y young were to be its apostles. Theirs was to be a mission- 
ary life. He told them to travel, to bear from land to land, from village 
to village, the torch of liberty, to expound its advantages to the people, 
to establish and .consecrate the cult. Let them not quail before the hor- 
rors of torture and imprisonment that might await them in the holy 
cause. "Ideas grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs." 
Never did a cause have a more dauntless leader, a man of purity of life, 
a man of imagination, of poetry, of audacity, gifted, moreover, with a 
marvelous command of persuasive language and with burning enthusiasm 
in his heart. The response was overwhelming. By 1833 the society 



GIUSEPPE MAZZTNI 



327 



The aims 
of the 
society 



reckoned 60,000 members. Branches were founded everywhere. Gari- 
baldi, whose name men were later to conjure with, joined it on the shores 
of the Black Sea. This is the romantic proselyting movement of the 
nineteenth century, all the more remarkable from the fact that its mem- 
bers were unknown men, bring- 
ing to their work no advantage 
of wealth or social position. 
But, as their leader wrote 
later, "All great national 
movements begin with the un- 
known men of the people, 
without influence except for 
the faith and will that counts 
not time or difficulties." 

The programme of this 
society was clear and em- 
phatic. First, 
Austria must be 
driven out. This 
was the condition precedent 
to all success. War must come 
— the sooner the better. Let 
not Italians rely on the aid of 
foreign governments, upon di- 
plomacy, but upon their own 
unaided strength. Austria could not stand against a nation of twenty 
millions fighting for their rights. "The only thing wanting to twenty 
millions of Italians, desirous of emancipating themselves, is not power, 
but /a////," he said. 

At a time when the obstacles seemed insuperable, when but few 
Italians dreamed of unity even as an ultimate ideal, Mazzini declared 
that it was a practicable ideal, that the seemingly impos- unity a 
sible was easily possible if only Italians would dare to show practicable 
their power; and his great significance in Italian history 
is that he succeeded in imparting his burning faith to multitudes of others. 
Mazzini was a republican and he wished his country, when united, to 
be a republic. That a solution of the Italian problem lay in combining 
the existing states into a federation he did not for a moment believe. 




Joseph Mazzini. 



328 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

Every argument for federation was a stronger argument for unity. 
"Never rise in any other name than that of Italy and of all Italy." 

Mazzini worked at a great disadvantage as he was early expelled 
from his own country and was compelled to spend nearly all his lifetime 
as an exile in London, hampered by paltry resources, and cut off from 
that intimate association with his own people which is so essential to 
effective leadership. 

Italy was not made as Mazzini wished it to be, as we shall see; never- 
theless is he one of the chief of the makers of Italy. He and the society 
he founded constituted a leavening, quickening force in the realm of 
ideas. Around them grew up a patriotism for a country that existed as 
yet only in the imagination. 

But to many serious students of the Italian problem Mazzini seemed 
far too radical; seemed a mystic and a rhetorician full of resounding 
and thrilling phrases, but with little practical sense. Men of conserva- 
tive temperament could not follow him. There was a considerable 
variety of opinion. Some believed in independence as fervidly as did 
A variety ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^°t believe in the possibility of Italian unity, 

of opinions for Italy had been too long divided, the divisions were too 
deep-seated. Some believed, not in a single state of Italy 
but in a federation of the various states, with the Pope as president or 
leader. Others criticised this as a preposterous idea and denounced 
the Pope's government of his own states in scathing terms. Still others 
held that Italy was not at all republican in sentiment but was thor- 
oughly monarchical and that a monarchy would be the natural form of 
its government. Some argued that, as it Was impossible to drive the 
Austrians out, they should be included in the federation; and some 
thought that, though the Austrians could not be driven out, they might 
be bribed to leave by being offered fat pickings in the Balkan peninsula 
at the expense of the Turks. Austria might thus, for a consideration, 
make Italy a present of her independence, certainly a fanciful idea. 
Out of this fermentation of ideas grew a more vigorous spirit of unrest, 
of dissatisfaction, of aspiration. 

The events of 1848 and 1849 gave a decided twist to Italian evolu- 
Reaction in ^^'^^- ^t one moment Italy had appeared to be on the 
1*^8 ****' '^^'■•^ point of achieving her independence and her unity. 
Then the reverses had come and she relapsed into her for- 
mer condition. It seemed as if everything was to be as it had been, 



COUNT CAMILLO DI CAVOUR 329 

only worse because of all these blasted hopes and fruitless struggles. 
But things were not exactly as they had been. In one quarter there 
was a change, emphatically for the better. One state in the peninsula 
formed a brilliant exception to this sorry system of reaction — Pied- 
mont. Though badly defeated on the battlefield at Custozza in 1848, 
and at Novara in 1849, it had gained an important moral victory. An 
Italian prince had risked his throne twice for the cause of Italian inde- 
pendence, conduct which for multitudes marked the House of Savoy as 
the leader of the future. Moreover, the king who had done this, Charles 
Albert, had also granted his people a constitution. He had abdicated 
after the battle of Novara, and his son, Victor Emmanuel II, then twenty- 
nine years of age, had come to the throne. 

Austria offered Victor Emmanuel easy terms of peace if he would 
abrogate this constitution, Austria not liking constitutions anywhere 
and particularly in a state that was a neighbor, and pros- 
pects of aggrandizement were dangled before him. He Emmanuel 
absolutely refused. This was a turning point in his career, ^^ (1820- 
in the history of Piedmont, and in that of Italy. It won 
him the popular title of the Honest King. It made Piedmont the one 
hope of Italian Liberals. She was national and con'stitu- piedmont a 
tional. Henceforth her leadership was assured. For the constitutional 
next ten years her history is the history of the making of ^ ^ ® 
the Kingdom of Italy. Thither Liberals who were driven out of the 
other states took refuge, and their number was large. 

Victor Emmanuel was a brave soldier, a man, not of brilliant mind, 
but of sound and independent judgment, of absolute loyalty to his word, 
of intense patriotism. And he had from 1850 on, in his leading minister, 
Count Camillo di Cavour, one of the greatest statesmen and diplomatists 
of the nineteenth century. 

Cavour was born in 18 10. His family belonged to the nobility of 
Piedmont. He received a military education and joined the army as 
an engineer. But by his liberal opinions, freely expressed, qq^^^ 
he incurred the hostility of his superiors and was kept for Cavour 
a time in semi-imprisonment. He resigned his commis- ~ 

sion in 1831, and for the next fifteen years lived the life of a coun- 
try gentleman, developing his estates. During these years, to vary 
the monotony of existence, he visited France and England repeatedly, 
interested particularly in political and economic 'questions. He was 



330 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

anxious to play a part in politics himself, though he saw no chance in 
a country as yet without representative institutions. "Oh! if I were 
an Englishman," he said, "by this time I should be something, and my 
name would not be wholly unknown," Meanwhile, he studied abroad 
the institutions he desired for his own country, particularly 
in political the English parliamentary system. Night after night he 
and econom- gg^^- [^ |-]^g gallery of the House of Commons, seeking to 
make himself thoroughly familiar with its modes of pro- 
cedure. He welcomed with enthusiasm the creation in 1848 of a parlia- 
ment for Piedmont and of a constitution, which he had, indeed, been 
one of the boldest to demand. "Italy," he said, "must make herself 
by means of liberty, or we must give up trying to make her." This 
belief in parliamentary institutions Cavour held tenaciously all through 
his life, even when at times they seemed to be a hindrance to his policies. 
He believed that in the end, sooner or later, the people reach the truth 
Cavour ^^ ^ matter. He was elected to the first Piedmontese 

Prime Min- Parliament, was taken into the cabinet in 1850, and be- 

' came prime minister in 1852. He held this position for 

the remainder of his life, with the exception of a few weeks, proving him- 
self a great statesman and an incomparable diplomat. 

Cavour's mind was the opposite of Mazzini's, practical, positive, 
not poetical and speculative. He desired the unity and the independ- 
ence of Italy. He hated Austria as the oppressor of his country, as 
an oppressor everywhere. But, unlike Mazzini, he did not underesti- 
mate her power, nor did he overestimate the power of his own country- 
men. Cavour believed, as did all the patriots, that Austria must be 
driven out of Italy before any Italian regeneration could be achieved. 
But he did not believe with Mazzini and others that the Italians could 
accomplish this feat alone. In his opinion the history of the last forty 
years had shown that plots and insurrections would not avail. It was 
essential to win the aid of a great military power comparable in strength 
and discipline to Austria. 

Cavour considered that the only possible leader in the work of free- 

ing and unifying Italy was the House of Savoy and the 

to make Piedmontese monarchy, and he felt that the proper gov- 

Piedmont a ernment of the new state, if it should ever arise, would be 
model state . . ' ' 

a constitutional monarchy. He wished to make Piedmont 

a model state so thkt, when the time came, the Italians of other states 



THE PERSONALITY OF CAVOUR 



331 



would recognize her leadership and join in her exaltation as best for them 
all. Piedmont had a constitution and the other states had not. He 
saw to it that she had a free political life and received a genuine training 
in self-government. Also he bent every energy to the development of 
the economic resources of his kingdom, by encouraging manufactures, 

by stimulating commerce, by 
modernizing agriculture, by 
building railroads. In a word 
he sought to make and did 
make Piedmont a model small 
state, liberal and progressive, 
hoping thus to win for her the 
Italians of the other states 
and the interest and approval 
of the countries and rulers of 
western Europe. 

The fundamental purpose, 
the constant preoccupation of 
this man's life, determining 
every action, prompting every 
wish, was to gain a Great 
Power as an ally. In the pur- 
suit of this elusive and su- 
premely difficult object, year 



m^ ^ 


w 




J^ 


mV 




■ 






[»s*iia£>^ 


^H "tM 


W^BmLiB' 



Cavour 
From a lithograph by Desmaisons. 



in, year out, Ca- 



Cavour an 



vour displayed his incomparable 
measure as "a diplomat, and stood forth finally without a ^*p°™^* 
peer. It is a marvelously absorbing story, from which we are precluded 
here because it cannot be properly presented except at length. The 
reader must go elsewhere for the details of this fascinating record, in 
which were combined, in rare harmony, sound judgment, practical sense, 
powers of clear, subtle, penetrating thought, unfailing attention to 
prosaic details, with imagination, audacity, courage, and iron nerve. 
A profound and accurate knowledge of the forces and personalities in 
the political life of Italy and of Europe, tact and sureness in appreciating 
the shifting scenes of the international stage, never-failing resourceful- 
ness in the service of a steady purpose, such were some of the character- 
istics of this master in statecraft and diplomacy. Though the minister 



332 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

of a petty state of only five million people, his was the most dynamic 
personality in Europe. 

Cavour was seeking an ally. He saw that the field was limited. It 
must be either England or France. The former country had no large 
Ca our seeks ^^^Y ^^'^ ^^^ disposed to keep itself as free from Euro- 
a military pean entanglements as possible. France on the other 
^ ^ hand was supposed to have the best army in Europe 

and her ruler, Napoleon III, was an ambitious and adventurous 
person. "Whether we like it or not," said Cavour "our destinies de- 
pend upon France." He sought to ingratiate himself with Napoleon. ! 
The Crimean War gave an opportunity. Piedmont made ! 
mont parti'c- ^^ Unconditional and very risky alliance in 1855 with 
ipated in France and England, then at war with Russia, and ren- 

^^ dered a distinct service to them. They in turn rendered 

her the service of securing her admittance to the Congress 
of Paris which terminated that war, of thus securing her recognition as 
an equal among the powers of Europe. They also gave Cavour a chance 
to discuss the Italian question in an international gathering in which 
Austria sat. 

Two years later Cavour received his great reward. Napoleon III 
bade him come to Plombieres, a watering place in the Vosges moun- 
tains, where the Emperor was taking the cure. And 
view at there in a famous carriage drive which these two took 

Plombieres through the forests of the Vosges, Napoleon holding the 
1858) ' reins, and in subsequent interviews, they plotted to bring 

about a war which should result in driving Austria out of 
Italy. Italy was to be freed "from the Alps to the Adriatic!" Piedmont 
should be given Lombardy and Venetia and a part of the Papal States. 
The Italian states should then be united in a confederation, with the 
Pope as president. France should receive Savoy, and possibly Nice. 
Such was the understanding of Plombieres. The motives that in- 
fluenced Napoleon to take this step which was to be momentous for 
Napoleon III ^™^^^^ ^^ "^^^^ ^s for Italy were numerous. The principle 
and the of nationality which he held tenaciously, and which largely 

natbialV^ determined the foreign policy of his entire reign, prompted 
him in this direction — the principle, namely, that people 
of the same race and language had the right to be united politically 
if they wished to be. Further, Napoleon had long been interested in 



THE PEACE OF VILLAFRANCA 333 

Italy. He had himself taken part in the revolutionary movements 
there in 183 1, and had probably been a member of the Carbonari. More- 
over, it was one of his ambitions to tear up the treaties of 181 5, treaties 
that sealed the humiliation of the Napoleonic dynasty. These treaties 
still formed the basis of the Italian political system in 1858. Again, he 
was probably lured on by a desire to win glory for his throne, and there 
was always the chance, too, of gaining territory. 

Thus in 1859 there came about a war between Austria on the one 
tiand and Piedmont and France on the other. The latter were victorious 
in two great battles, that of Magenta (June 4) and of The war 
Solferino (June 24). The latter was one of the greatest °^ ^^^^ 
battles of the nineteenth century. It lasted eleven hours, more than 
260,000 men were engaged, nearly 800 cannon. The Allies lost over 
17,000 men, the Austrians about 22,000. All Lombardy was conquered, 
a,nd Milan was occupied. It seemed that Venetia could be easily over- 
run and the termination of Austrian rule in Italy effected, and Napo- 
leon's statement that he would free Italy "from the Alps to the Adriatic " 
accomplished. Suddenly Napoleon halted in the full tide of success, 
sought an interview with the Emperor of Austria at Villa- j,^^ Pj.g_ 
franca, and there on July nth, without consulting the liminaries of 
wishes of his ally, concluded a famous armistice. The terms 
agreed upon by the two Emperors were: that Lombardy should pass to 
Piedmont, that Austria should retain Venetia, that the Italian states 
should form a confederation, that the rulers of Tuscany, and Modena 
should be restored to their states, whence they had just been driven by 
popular uprisings. 

Why had Napoleon stopped in the middle of a successful campaign, 
and before he had accomplished the object for which he had come into 
Italy? The were several reasons. He had been shocked Reasons for 
by the horrors of the battlefield. He saw that the comple- Napoleon's 
tion of the conquest of Austria meant a far larger sacrifice 
of life. Prussia was preparing to intervene. Moreover Napoleon be- 
came apprehensive about the results of his policy. If it should end in 
the creation of a strong national kingdom, as seemed likely, would not 
this be dangerous to France? A somewhat enlarged Piedmont was one 
thing, but a kingdom of all Italy, neighbor to France, was something 
very differeht. 

The news of the peace came as a cruel disappointment to the Ital- 



334 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

ians, dashing their hopes just as they were apparently about to be real- 
ized. The Government of Victor Emmanuel had not even been consulted. 
In intense indignation at the faithlessness of Napoleon, overwi ought 
by the excessive strain under which he had long been laboring, Cavour 
completely lost his self-control, urged desperate measures upon the 
King and, when they were declined, in a fit of rage, threw up his office. 
Resignation The King by overruling Cavour showed himself wiser than 
of Cavour j^jg gifted minister. As disappointed as the latter, he saw 
more clearly than did Cavour that though Piedmont had not gained all 
that she had hoped to, yet she had gained much. It was wiser to take 
what one could get and bide the future than to imperil all by some 
mad course. Here was one of the great moments where the independ- 
ence and common sense of Victor Emmanuel were of great and enduring 
service to his country. 

Napoleon had not done all that he had planned for Italy, yet he 
had rendered a very important service. He had secured Lombardy 
Piedmont ^°^ Piedmont. It should also be noted that he himself 

acquires acknowledged that the failure to carry out the whole 

om ar y programme had canceled any claim he had upon the 
annexation of Savoy and Nice to France. 

But the future of Italy was not to be determined solely by the Em- 
peror of France and the Emperor of Austria. The people of Italy had 
their own ideas and were resolved to make them heard. During the 
war, so suddenly and imexpectedly closed, the rulers of Modena, Parma, 
Tuscany had been overthrown by popular uprisings and the Pope's 
Central Italy authority in Romagna, the northern part of his domin- 
after ions, had been destroyed. The people who had accom- 

plished this had no intention of restoring the princes they 
had expelled. They defied the two Emperors who had decided at Villa- 
franca that those rulers should be restored. In this they were supported 
England's diplomatically by the English Government. This was Eng- 
participation land's great service to the Italians. "The people of the 
duchies have as much right to change their sovereigns," 
said Lord Palmerston, ''as the English people, or the French, or the 
Annexation of Belgian, or the Swedish. The annexation of the duchies to 
the duchies Piedmont will be an unfathomable good to Italy." The 
people of these states voted almost unanimously in favor 
of annexation (March 11-12, i860). Victor Emmanuel accepted the 



c' GothardPay^ 10 XongiUide East 1 




' ' Zvridi,, My. /Oi" 1859. <>_ 

I TT I Jlmer alien lo Sardinia^ t 'oted' fw 
' ^ FleNscUes, Mir. Il,k]2, 1860. 

r^^-\AiimmUo7i to Sardinia, roledbr 

I TV I .:^n>wwhm to Sard! Ilia, vokdby 
'--*^-' rtSiMifes, Oct. 2l« 1860 

nrT-i :4///ifi.ratim- toICiiiz/dmi oriiaJ): 
I— =— J Voted hrFIBiMites, Oct. 2tli-2i, 1866. 

Ittt I Anncratiim ta Ixinodow ofltair, 
'-^^i-' Voted by ttetiiscdp^ 0(2.21870. ' 

rWI CededtoFrance.Mmdi.1860. 
Ceded to France, Mdrch, MO. 



ANNEXATIONS TO PIEDMONT 335 

,overeignty thus offered him, and on April 2, i860, the first parlia- 

nent of the enlarged kingdom met in Turin. A small state of less than 

;,ooo,ooo had grown to one of 11,000,000 within a year. This was the 

nost important change in the political system of Europe since 18 15. 

Vs far as Italy was concerned it made waste paper of the treaties of 18 15. 

;t constituted the most damaging breach made thus far in the work of 

he Congress of Vienna. What that congress had decided was to be a 

nere "geographical expression" was now a nation in formation. And 

his was being accomplished by the triumphant assertion of two prin- 

:iples utterly odious to the monarchs of 181 5, the right of revolution 

ind the right of peoples to determine their own destinies for themselves, 

or these annexations were the result of war and of plebiscites. 

Napoleon III acquiesced in all this, taking for himself Cession of 

savoy and Nice in return for services rendered. The ^^^'^^ ^°^ 
-^ . Nice to 

i'eace of Villafranca was never enforced. France 

THE CONQUEST OF THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES 

Much had been achieved in the eventful year just described, but 
nuch remained to be achieved before the unification of Italy should be 
:omplete. Venetia, the larger part of the Papal States, and the King- 
iom of Naples still stood outside. In the last, however, events now 
)ccurred which carried the process a long step forward. Early in i860 
;he Sicilians rose in revolt against the despotism of their The Sicilian 
lew king, Francis II. This insurrection created an oppor- Insurrection 
:unity for a man already famous but destined to a wonderful exploit 
md to a memorable service to his country, Giuseppe Garibaldi, already 
:he most popular military leader in Italy, and invested with a half 
nythical character of invincibility and daring, the result of a very 
spectacular, romantic career. 

Garibaldi was born at Nice in 1807. He was therefore two years 
>rounger than Mazzini and three years older than Cavour. Destined by 
lis parents for the priesthood he preferred the sea, and for Gjuspppg 
nany years he lived a roving and adventurous sailor's Garibaldi, 
ife. He early joined "Young Italy." His military ex- 
Derience was chiefly in irregular, guerilla fighting. He took part in the 
msuccessful insurrection organized by Mazzini in Savoy in 1834, and 
IS a result was condemned to death. He managed to escape to South 
\merica where, for the next fourteen years, he was an exile. He partic- 



336 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

ipated in the abundant wars of the South American state? with the 
famous "Italian Legion," which he organized and commanded. Learn- 
ing of the uprising of 1848 he returned to Italy, though still under the 
The defense, penalty of death, and immediately thousands flocked to 
of Rome ^}^g standard of the ''hero of Montevideo" to fight under 

him against the Austrians. After the failure of that campaign he went, 
in 1849, to Rome to assume the military defense of the republic. When 
the city was about to fall he escaped with four thousand troops, intend- 
ing to attack the Austrian power in Venetia. French and Austrian 
armies pursued him. He succeeded in evading them, but his army 
dwindled away rapidly and the chase became so hot that he was forced 
to escape to the Adriatic. When he landed later, his enemies were im- 
mediately in full cry again, hunting him through forests and over moun- 
tains as if he were some dangerous game. It was a wonderful exploit, 
rendered tragic by the death in a farmhouse near Ravenna, of his wife 
Anita, who was his companion in the camp as in the home, and who was 
as high-spirited, as daring, as courageous as he. Garibaldi finally es- 
caped to America and began once more the life of an exile. But his 
story, shot through and through with heroism and chivalry and ro- 
mance, moved the Italian people to unwonted depths of enthusiasm 
and admiration. 

For several years Garibaldi was a wanderer, sailing the seas, com- 
mander of a Peruvian bark. For some months, indeed, he was a candle 
maker on Staten Island, but in 1854 he returned to Italy 
"The Hunt- and settled down as a farmer on the little island of Ca- 
ers of the prera. But the events of 1859 once more brought him out 
of his retirement. Again, as a leader of volunteers, he 
plunged into the war against Austria and immensely increased his repu- 
ta4:ion. He had become the idol of soldiers and adventurous spirits from 
one end of Italy to the other. Multitudes were ready to follow in blind 
confidence wherever he might lead. His name was one to conjure with. 
Determines There now occurred, in i860, the most brilliant episode of 
to go to his career, the Sicilian expedition and the campaign against 

^^ ^ the Kingdom of Naples. For Garibaldi, the most redoubt- 

able warrior of Italy, whose very name was worth an army, now de- 
cided on his own account to go to the aid of the Sicilians who had 
risen in revolt against their king, Francis II of Naples. 

On May 5, i860, the expedition of "The Thousand," the "Red 



GARIBALDI CONQUERS NAPLES 337 

Shirts," embarked from Genoa in two steamers. These were the volun- 
teers, nearly 1,150 men, whom Garibaldi's fame had caused 
to rush into the new adventure, an adventure that seemed dmo^or' 

at the moment one of utter folly. The King of Naples "'^^^ 
11 , • o- •! 1 , . Thousand" 

had 24,000 troops m Sicily and 100,000 more on the main- 
land. The odds against success seemed overwhelming. But fortune 

favored the brave. After 
a campaign of a few 
weeks, in which he was 
several times in great 
danger, and was only 
saved by the most reck- 
less fighting, Garibaldi 
stood master of the 
island, helped by the Si- 
cilian insurgents, by vol- 
unteers who had flocked 
from the mainland, and 
by the incompetency of 
the commanders of the 
Neapolitan troops. Au- 
dacity had won the vic- 
tory. He assumed the 
position of Dictator in 
Sicily in the name of Vic- 
tor Emmanuel II (Au- 
gust 5, i860). 

Garibaldi now crossed 
the straits to the main- 
land deter- conquest of 
mined to the Kingdom 

,1 of Naples 
conquer the 

entire Kingdom of Na- 
ples (August 19, i860). 
The King still had an army of 100,000 men, but it had not even the 
strength of a frail reed. There was practically no bloodshed. The 
Neapolitan Kingdom was not overthrown; it collapsed. Treachery, de- 
sertion, corruption did the work. On September 6th, Francis II left 




Garibaldi 
From a photograph. 



338 



MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 



Garibaldi 
plans to 
attack Rome 



Naples for Gaeta and the next day Garibaldi entered it by rail with 
only a few attendants, and drove through the streets amid a pande- 
monium of enthusiasm. In less than five months he had conquered a 
kingdom of 11,000,000 people, an achievement unique in modern 
history. 

Garibaldi now began to talk of pushing on to Rome. To Cavour the 
situation seemed 
full of danger. 
Rome was occu- 
pied by a French garrison. An 
attack upon it would almost 
necessarily mean an attack 
upon France. Cavour there- 
fore decided to intervene, to 
take the direction of events 
out of the hands of Garibaldi, 
and to guide the future evolu- 
tion himself. At his instance 
therefore Victor Emmanuel led 
an army into the Papal States. 
But he did not lead it to Rome 
as he knew that Napoleon III, 
because of the strong Catholic 
feeling in France, would not 
permit him to annex the Papal 
capital. Napoleon, however, 
was willing that he should an- 
nex the Marches and Umbria, 
which were parts of the Pope's 
possessions. Only the city of 
Rome and the country round about it must not be touched. 

Victor Emmanuel's army defeated the Papal troops at Castelfidardo 
(September 18, i860). It then entered the territory of Naples. On 
Intervention November 7th, Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi drove 
of Piedmont together through the streets of Naples. The latter re- 
fused all rewards and honors and with only a little money and a bag 
of seed beans for the spring planting sailed away to his farm on the 
island of Caprera. 




Victor Emmanuel II 
From the engraving by Metzmacher. 



THE KINGDOM OF ITALY PROCLAIMED 339 

Victor Emmanuel completed the conquest which Garibaldi had 
alone carried so far. The people in the Marches, Umbria, The annexa- 
and the Kingdom of Naples voted overwhelmingly in *'°° °^ 
favor of annexation to the new Kingdom of Italy, which bria, and the 
had been created in this astonishing fashion. Marches 

On the 1 8th of February, 1861, a new Parliament, representing 
>ill Italy except Venetia and Rome, met in Turin. The Kingdom of 
Sardinia now gave way to the Kingdom of Italy, pro- ^^^ King- 
claimed on March 17. Victor Emmanuel II was declared dom of Italy 
"by the grace of God and the wiU of the nation. King p'""^^^"^^^ 
of Italy." 

A new kingdom, comprising a population of about twenty-two 
millions, had arisen during a period of eighteen months, and now took 
its place among the powers of Europe. But the Kingdom of Italy was 
still incomplete. Venetia was still Austrian and Rome was still subject 
to the Pope. The acquisition of these had to be postponed. 

Nevertheless, Cavour felt that "without Rome there was no Italy." 
He was working on a scheme which he hoped might reconcile the Pope 
and the CathoHc world everythere to the recognition of Rome as the 
capital of the new kingdom, when he suddenly fell ill. Overwork, the 
extraordinary pressure under which he had for months been laboring, 
brought on insomnia; finally fever developed and he died Death of 
on the morning of June 6th, 1861, in the very prime of Cavour 
life, for he was only fifty-one years of age. 

" Cavour," said Lord Palmerston, in the British House of Commons, 
"left a name 'to point a moral and adorn a tale.' The moral was, that 
a man of transcendent talent, indomitable industry, inextinguishable 
patriotism, could overcome difficulties which seemed insurmountable, 
and confer the greatest, the most inestimable benefits on his country. 
The tale with which his memory would be associated was the most 
extraordinary, the most romantic, in the annals of the world. A people 
which had seemed dead had arisen to new and vigorous life, breaking the 
spell which bound it, and showing itself worthy of a new and splendid 
destiny." 

Throiighout his life Cavour remained faithful to his fundamental 
political principle, government by parliament and by constitutional 
forms. Urged at various times to assume a dictatorship he replied that 
he had no confidence in dictatorships. "I always feel strongest," he 



340 MAKING OF THE KINGDOM OF ITALY 

said, "when Parliament is sitting." "I cannot betray my origin, deny 
the principles of all my life," he wrote in a private letter not intended 
for the public. "I am the son of liberty and to her I owe all that I 
am. If a veil is to be placed on her statue, it is not for me to do it." 

REFERENCES 

Mazzini and Young Italy: Holland, Builders of United Italy, pp. 125-164; 
Marriott, Makers of Modern Italy; Thayer, Dawn of Italian Independence, Vol. I, 
pp. 379^03; Bolton King, Joseph Mazzini; Thayer, Ilalica. 

Cavour: Holland, pp. 165-222; Marriott, Makers of Modern Italy; Cesaresco, 
Cavour (best brief biography); Thayer, Cavour (best biography of Cavour in any 
language, elaborate, authoritative, and very readable). 

Garibaldi: Holland, pp. 223-282; Marriott, Makers of Modern Italy; Thayer, 
Throne-Makers. 

Early Life of Garibaldi: Trevelyan, Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic^ 
pp. 7^1. 

Garibaldi's Campaign of 1860: Murdock, Reconslruction of Modern Europe, 
Chap. XIII, pp. 156-177; Cesaresco, Liberation of Italy, Chaps. XIV-XVI, pp. 266- 
339; Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand. 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 

In 1848 and 1849 the liberal elements of Germany had made an 
earnest effort to achieve national unity but the work of the Parliament 
of Frankfort had been rejected by the sovereigns of the j^ ^. 
leading states and had been rendered null and void. The Germany 
old Confederation was restored, resuming its sessions in ^^"^ '*^ 
May, 185 1. A period of reaction in Germany began again, even more 
far-reaching in its scope than that which had followed the Congress of 
Vienna in 181 5. Austria and Prussia took the lead in the familiar work 
of oppression. 

One gain had been made in the turbulent year. The King of Prussia 
had granted a constitution and created a Parliament. Like the King 
of Piedmont he refused to abolish the constitution. Un- prugsia 
like the latter, however, he did not at all intend that the given a 
creation of a Parliament should mean the introduction of 
the English parliamentary system, with parliament, representing the 
people, the dominant authority in the state. The constitutional de- 
velopment of Piedmont and Prussia, starting at the same time, was to 
be utterly different. In passing from Italy to Germany we enter 
another atmosphere. In Piedmont, as we have seen, the constitution 
was honestly and vigorously applied and yielded its legitimate fruit in 
the political education of the people. Cavour believed that the free 
discussion of parliament was a safer and wiser guide than the auto- 
cratic determination of a monarch. Liberty was his ideal pmssia not 
from which he never swerved, though it would often have a parUamen- 
been convenient for him if he had. On the other hand 
the King of Prussia did not propose to divide his power with any 
assembly. The assembly had no control over the ministry. 

While Prussia preserved her constitution the ministers developed 
great skill in really nullifying it, though pretending to maintain it. 
The government of Prussia was, after 1848 as before, a scarcely veiled 

341 



342 



THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 



autocracy. Reaction of the old, classic style was the order of the day. 
The press was not free. Public meetings might be held only by those 
favorable to the government. The police were active and unscrupulous. 

A change came over Prussia, though not in the direction of free 
institutions and the develop- 
ment of a free public life, 
with the beginning of a reign, 
destined to prove most illus- 
trious, that of William I. 

William became King of 
Prussia in 1861. He was the 
WiUiam I son of the fa- 
(1797-1888) mous Quecu 

Louise, was born in 1797, and 
had served in the campaign 
against Napoleon in 18 14. 
He was now sixty-four years 
old. His mind was in no 
sense brilliant but was slow, 
solid, and sound. His entire 
lifetime had been spent in the 
army, which he loved pas- 
sionately. In military mat- 
ters his thorough knowledge 
and competence were recog- 
nized. He believed that 
Prussia's destinies were de- 
pendent upon her army. The army was necessary for his purpose which 
was to put Prussia at the head of Germany. "Whoever wishes to rule 
Germany must conquer it," he wrote in 1849, "and that cannot be done 
by phrases." 

William believed that the Prussian army needed strengthening, 
and he brought forward a plan that would nearly double it. He de- 
manded the necessary appropriations of Parliament, which 
declined to grant them. A bitter and prolonged contro- 
versy arose between the Crown and the Chamber of Deputies, each 
side growing stiffer as the contest proceeded. The King was absolutely 
resolved not to abate one jot or tittle from his demands. On the other 




William I 
From a photograph taken in 1870. 



Army reform 



BISMARCK 343 

hand the Chamber persisted in asserting its control over the purse as 

the fundamental power of any ParHament that mtends to ^ 

r , . . , Opposition 

count for anythmg m the state. A deadlock ensued. The of the 

King was urged to abolish Parliament altogether. This ^^^°^^^' 

he would not do because he had sworn to support the constitution 

which established it. He thought of abdicating. He never thought of 

abandoning the reform. He had written out his abdication and signed 

it, and it was lying upon his desk when he at last consented to call to 

the ministry as a final experiment a new man, known for 

his boldness, his independence, his devotion to the mon- Bismarck- 

archy. Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was apnointed Schonhausen 

^1815-1898^ 

President of the Ministry September 23, 1862; on that 
very day the Chamber rejected anew the credits asked for by the 
King for the new regiments. The conflict entered upon its most acute 
phase and a new era began for Prussia and for the world. 

In this interview Bismarck told the King frankly that he was will- 
ing to carry out his policy whether Parliament agreed to it or not. "I 
will rather perish with the King," he said, "than forsake your Majesty 
in the contest with parliamentary government." His boldness deter- 
mined the King to tear up the paper containing his abdication and to 
continue the struggle with the Chamber of Deputies. 

The man who now entered upon the stage of European politics was 
one of the most original and remarkable characters of his century. 
Born in 1815, he came of a noble family in Brandenburg Bismarck's 
and was an aristocrat to his finger tips. Receiving a uni- previous 
versity education, he entered the civil service of Prussia, 
only to leave it shortly, disgusted by its monotony. He then settled 
upon his father's estate as a country squire. Unlike Cavour in Italy, 
Bismarck was enraged when the King granted a constitution to Prussia 
in 1850. While Cavour saw in England the model of what he wished 
his own country to become, Bismarck said, "The refer- Bismarck's 
ences to England are our misfortune." Bismarck's politi- political 
cal ideas centered in his ardent belief in the Prussian °P""°°^ 
monarchy. It had been the Prussian kings, not the Prussian people, 
who had made Prussia great. This, the great historic fact, must be 
preserved. What Prussian kings had done, they still would do. A re- 
duction of royal power would only be damaging to the state. Bismarck 
was the uncompromising foe of the attempts made in 1848 to achieve 



344 THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 

German unity, because he thought that it should be the princes and not 
the people who should determine the institutions and destinies of Ger- 
many. He hated democracy as he hated parliaments and constitutions. 
His hatred "I look for Prussian honor in Prussia's abstinence before 
of democracy ^w things from every shameful union with democracy," he 
said. In 1851 Bismarck was appointed Prussian delegate to the Diet 
in Frankfort where for the next eight years he studied and practised 
the art of diplomacy, in which he was later to win many sweeping vic- 
tories. He made the acquaintance of all the important statesmen and 
politicians of Germany and studied their characters and ambitions. He 
became strongly anti- Austrian in his sentiments. As early as 1853 he 
told his government that there was not room in Germany for both Prus- 
sia and Austria, that one or the other must bend. His utterances and 
attitudes became more and more irritating to Austria. Consequently 
King William, wishing to continue on good relations with the latter 
power, appointed him in 1859 ambassador to St. Petersburg, or, as 
Bismarck put it, sent him "to cool off on the banks of the Neva." 
Later he was, for a short time, ambassador to France. 

Such was the man, who, in 1862 at the age of forty-seven, accepted 
the position of President of the Prussian Ministry at a time when King 
and Parliament confronted each other in angry deadlock, and when no 
other politician would accept the leadership. For four years, from 1862 
to 1866, the conflict continued. The Constitution was not abolished. 
The peiiod Parliament was called repeatedly, the Lower House voted 
of conflict yea,r after year against the budget, supported in this by 
the voters, the Upper House voted for it, and the King acted as if this 
made it legal. The period was one of virtual dictatorship and real sus- 
pension of parliamentary life. The King continued to collect the taxes, 
the army was thoroughly reorganized and absolutely controlled by the 
authorities, and the Lower House had no mode of opposition save the 
verbal one, which was entirely ineffective. 

Thus the increase in the army was secured. But an army is a mere 
means to an end. The particular end that Bismarck had in view was 
Army reform ^^^ creation of Germany unity by means of Prussia and 
carried for the advantage of Prussia. There must be no ab- 

°"^ sorption of Prussia in Germany, as there had been of 

Piedmont in Italy, Piedmont as a separate state entirely disappearing. 
And in Bismarck's opinion this unity could only be achieved by war. 



BISMARCK'S BLOOD AND IRON POLICY 



345 



He boldly denied in Parliament the favorite theory of the Liberals 
that Prussia was to be made great by a liberal, free, parliamentary gov- 
ernment, by setting an example of progressiveness, as Piedmont had 
done, which would rally Ger- 



mans in other states about 
her, rather than about their 
own governments. In what 
was destined to be the most 
famous speech of his life he 
declared in 1863 that what 
Germans cared about was not 
the liberalism of Prussia but her 
power. Prussia must concen- 
trate her forces and hold her- 
self ready for the favorable 
moment. "Not by speeches 
and majority votes are the 
great questions of the day de- 
cided — that was the great 
blunder of 1848 and 1849 — 
but by blood and iron," in 
other words the army, not Par- 
liament, would determine the 
future of Prussia. 

This "blood and iron" 




Bismarck 
From a photograph. 



policy was bitterly denounced by Liberals, but Bismarck ,, ^i^^^ ^nd 
ignored their criticisms and shortly found a chance to iron" 
begin its application. 

The German Empire is the result of the policy of blood and iron as 
carried out by Prussia in three wars which were crowded into the brief 
period of six years, the war with Denmark in 1864, with Prussia's 
Austria in 1866, and with France in 1870, the last two of ^®® ^^" 
which were largely the result of Bismarck's will and his diplomatic 
ingenuity and unscrupulousness, and the first of which he exploited 
consummately for the advantage of Prussia. 

The first of these grew out of one of the most complicated ques- 
tions that have ever perplexed diplomatists and statesmen, the future 
of Schleswig and Holstein. These were two duchies in the Danish 



346 • THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 

peninsula, which is itself simply an extension of the great plain of 

northern Germany. Holstein was inhabited by a popula- 

Schleswig- tion of about 600,000, entirely German; Schleswig by a 

Holstein population of from 2=50,000 to ^00,000 Germans and 

question ^ ^ . 

150,000 Danes. These two duchies had for centuries been 
united with Denmark, but they did not form an integral part of the 
Danish Kingdom. Their relation to Denmark was personal, arising from 
the fact that a Duke of Schleswig and Holstein had become King of 
Denmark, just as an Elector of Hanover had become a King of Eng- 
land. Holstein was a member of the German Confederation, but Schles- 
wig was not. The Germans in Schleswig wished to bring about its 
admission to the Confederation but the Danes objected and in 1863 
declared Schleswig incorporated in Denmark. 

There are other elements in the tangle which it is unnecessary to 
explain as the question of Schleswig and Holstein was not decided at 
all on its merits, was not decided as either the Danish or the German 
people wished it to be. Bismarck saw in the situation a chance for a 
possible aggrandizement of Prussia and a chance for a quarrel with Aus- 
tria, both things which he desired for the greater glory of his country. 
He induced Austria to cooperate with Prussia in settling the Schleswig- 
Holstein question. The two powers delivered an iiltimatum to Denmark 
. allowing that country only forty-eight hours in which to corn- 

Austria make ply with their demands. The Danes, not complying, Prussia 

war on g^j^^j Austria immediately declared war. A war between one 

Denmark 

small state and two large ones could not be doubtful. 
Sixty thousand Prussians and Austrians invaded Denmark in February, 
1864, and though their campaign was not brilliant, they easily won, and 
forced Denmark to cede the two duchies to them jointly (October, 1864). 
They might make whatever disposition of them they chose to. 

But they could not agree. Austria wished them admitted together 
as an additional state of the German Confederation and the people of 
. . Germany were overwhelmingly in favor of this arrangement, 

between But Bismarck's ideas were very different. He did not care 

Prussia and fQj. another German state. There were too many already, 
and this one would only be another enemy of Prussia and 
ally of Austria. Moreover, Bismarck wished to annex the duchies 
wholly or in part to Prussia. He desired aggrandizement in general, but 
this particular addition would be especially advantageous, as it would 



THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR 347 

lengthen the coast line of Prussia, would bring with it several good har- 
bors, notably Kiel, and would enable Prussia to expand commercially. 

Thus the two powers were at variance over the disposition of their 
spoils. The situation was one that exactly suited Bismarck. Out of it 
he hoped to bring about the war with Austria which he had desired for 
the past ten years as being the only means whereby German unity could 
be achieved by Prussia and for Prussia's advantage. There was not 
room enough in Germany, he thought, for both powers. That being 
the case, he wished the room for Prussia. The only way to get it was 
to take it. As Austria had no inclination gracefully to yield, there would 
have to be a fight. Both began to arm. 

Finally war broke out in June, 1866. Bismarck had thus brought 
about his dream of a conflict between peoples of the same race to deter- 
mine the question of control. It proved to be one of the ^j^^ Austro- 
shortest wars in history, one of the most decisive, and one Prussian 
whose consequences were most momentous. It is called ^" °* ^^®® 
the Seven Weeks' War. It began June 16, 1866, was virtually decided 
on July 3d, was brought to a close before the end of that month by the 
preliminary Peace of Nikolsburg, July 26, which was followed a month 
later by the definitive Peace of Prague, August 23. Prussia had no 
German allies of any importance. Several of the North German states 
sided with her, but these were small and their armies were unimportant. 
On the other hand, Austria was supported by the four kingdoms, Bava- 
ria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, and Hanover; also by Hesse-Cassel, Hesse- 
Dajrmstadt, Nassau, and Baden. But Prussia had one important ally, 
Italy, without whose aid she might not have won the victory. Italy was 
to receive Venetia, which she coveted, if Austria were defeated. The 
Prussian army, however, was better prepared. For years the rulers of 
Prussia had been preparing for war, perfecting the army down to the 
minutest detail, and with scientific thoroughness, and when the war 
began it was absolutely ready. Moreover, it was directed by a very 
able leader. General von Moltke. 

Prussia had many enemies. Being absolutely prepared, as her ene- 
mies were not, she could assume the offensive, and this ^ 

' Prussia 

was the cause of her first victories. War began June 16. conquers 
Within three days Prussian troops had occupied Hanover, ?°^^jj 
Dresden, and Cassel, the capitals of her three North Ger- 
roa-n enemies. A few days later the Hanoverian army was forced to 



348 



THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 



The battle 
of Konig- 
gratz or 
Sadowa 



capitulate. The King of Hanover and the Elector of Hesse were taken 
prisoners of war. All North Germany was now controlled by Prussia, 
and within two weeks of the opening of the war she was ready to attempt 
the great plan of Moltke, an invasion of Bohemia. The rapidity of the 

campaign struck 

Europe with 

amazement. 

Moltke sent three 
armies by different routes into 
Bohemia, and on July 3, 1866, 
one of the great battles of his- 
tory, that of Koniggratz, or 
Sadowa, was fought. Each 
army numbered over 200,000, 
the Prussians outnumbering 
the Austrians, though not at 
the beginning. Since the bat- 
tle of Leipsic in 1813, so many 
troops had not been engaged 
in a single conflict. King Wil- 
liam, Bismarck, and Moltke 
took up their position on a hill, 
whence they could view the 
scene. The battle was long 
and doubtful. Beginning 
early in the morning, it con- 
tinued for hours, fought with 
terrific fury, the Prussians 
making no advance against the Austrian artillery. Up to two o'clock 
it seemed an Austrian victory, but with the arrival of the Prussian Crown 
Prince with his army the issue was turned, and at half-past three the 
Austrians were beaten and their retreat began. They had lost over 
forty thousand men, while the Prussian loss was about ten thousand. 
The Prussian army during the next three weeks advanced to within 
sight of the spires of Vienna. 

On June 24 the Austrians had been victorious over the Italians at 
Custozza. Yet the Italians had helped Prussia by detaining eighty 
thousand Austrian troops, which, had they been at Koniggratz, would 




Moltke 
From the painting by Lenbach. 



PRUSSIAN ANNEXATIONS 349 

probably have turned the day. The ItaHan fleet was also defeated by 

the Austrian at Lissa, July 20. 

The results of the Seven Weeks' War were momentous. Fearing the 

InterA^ention of Europe, and particularly that of France, which was 

threatened, and which might rob the victory of its fruits, 

Bismarck wished to make peace at once, and consequently th? Ausfro- 

offered lenient terms to Austria. She was to cede Venetia Prussian 

War 
to Italy but was to lose no other territory. She was to 

withdraw from the German Confederation, which, indeed, was to cease 
to exist. She was to allow Prussia to organize and lead a new confed- 
eration, composed of those states which were north of the river Main. 
The South German states were left free to act as they chose. Thus 
Germany, north of the Main, was to be united. 

Having accomplished this, Prussia proceeded to make important 
annexations to her own territory. The Kingdom of Hanover, the Duch- 
ies of Nassau and Hesse-Cassel, and the free city of Frankfort, as well 
as the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, were incorporated in the 
Prussian kingdom. Her population was thereby increased by over four 
and a half million new subjects, and thus was about twenty- Annexations 
four million. There was no thought of having the people ^'^ Prussia 
of these states vote on the question of annexation, as had been done in 
Italy, and in Savoy and Nice. They were annexed forthwith by right 
of military conquest. Reigning houses ceased to rule on order from 
Berlin. Unwisely for themselves European nations allowed the swift 
consummation of these changes, which altered the balance of power 
and the map of Europe — a mistake which France in particular was to 
repent most bitterly. "I do not like this dethronement of dynasties," 
said the Czar, but he failed to express his dislike in action. 

The North German Confederation, which was now created, included 

all of Germany north of the river Main, twenty-two states in all. The 

constitution was the work of Bismarck. There was to be _. __ ^, 

The North 

a president of the Confederation, namely the King of Prus- German Con- 
sia. There was to be a Federal Council (Bundesrath), [{^l^^ll^^^ 
composed of delegates sent by the sovereigns of the differ- 
ent states, to be recalled at their pleasure, to vote as they dictated. 
Prussia was always to have seventeen votes out of the total forty- 
three. In order to have a majority she would have to gain only a 
few adherents from the other states, which she could easily do. 



3 so THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 

There was also to be a Reichstag, elected by the people. This was 
Bismarck's concession to the Liberals. Of the two bodies the Reichstag 
was much the less important. The people were given a place in the new 
system, but a subordinate one. 

The new constitution went into force July i, 1867. This North Ger- 
man Confederation remained in existence only four years when it gave 
way to the present German Empire, one of the results of the Franco- 
Prussian War of 1870. 

REFERENCES 

Bismarck's Early Lite: Munroe Smith, Bismarck and German Unity, pp. 1-18: 
Headlam, Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire, pp. 1-33. 

The Seven Weeks' War: Murdock, Reconstruction of Modern Europe, Chaps. 
XVI-XVIII, pp. 211-248; FySe, History of Modern Europe, pp. 936-958; Henderson, 
Short History of Germany, Vol. II, pp. 393^10; Headlam, pp. 240-290; Priest, Ger- 
many Since 1740, pp. 107-113. 

Establishment of the North German Confederation: Headlam, Chap. XII 
pp. 291-314; LoweU, Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, Vol. I, pp. 
237-242; Seignobos, Political History of Europe Since 1814, pp. 472^81. 









^U/Sbif^ 






fc«.f/{«/y 



Ducliy of Xfuenhurg 

(Ncufclialel) 




CHAPTER XX 

THE SECOND EMPIRE AND THE FRANCO- 
PRUSSIAN WAR 

The year 1866 is a turning point in the history of Prussia, of Austria, 
of France, of modern Europe. It profoundly altered the historic bal- 
ance of power. By the decisiveness of the campaign, and 
by the momentous character of its consequences, Prussia, jge^e^a" 
hitherto regarded as the least important of the great powers, turning point 
had astounded Europe by the evidence of her strength. She lysto,.- 
possessed a remarkable army and a remarkable statesman. 
That both were the most powerful in Europe was not entirely proved, 
but the feeling was widespread that such was the case. The center of 
interest in central Europe shifted from Vienna to Berlin. The reputa- 
tion of Napoleon III was seriously compromised. He had entirely mis- 
judged the situation, had played a feeble and mistaken part, when he 
might have played one highly advantageous to his country. He had 
rather welcomed the war between Prussia and Austria. In his opinion, 
it would be long, exhausting both combatants. At the proper time he 
could intervene, and from the distress of the rivals could extract gain 
for France, possibly the left bank of the Rhine, which Prussia might 
be wilHng to relinquish in return for aid. His calculation was based 
upon his belief in the vast military superiority of Austria. The war 
came, and, contrary to expectation, it was short and swift. Prussia 
was victorious, not Austria. The battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, 
July 3, 1866, was decisive. Even then it was not too late for an inter- 
vention. Napoleon could have played a commanding part ^^^^^^^^y^ 
in determining the terms of peace had he threatened to failure to use 
come to the aid of Austria, as Austria desired. Had he ^pp^^unity 
refused to recognize the annexations of Prussia unless 
compensated, he could have secured important additions to France. 
But his policy was weak and vacillating. Accomplishing nothing for 
France, he yet irritated Prussia by a half-measure of insisting that the 
new confederation should not extend south of the river Mam. 

351 



352 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR i 

Another serious mistake of Napoleon was culminating at this very 
time, his Mexican policy, a most unnecessary, reckless, and disastrous 
ijjjg enterprise. This ill-starred adventure began in an inter- 

Mexican vention of France, England, and Spain, whose citizens had 

xpe 1 ion loaned money to Mexico, the interest on which Mexico now 
refused to pay. A joint expedition was sent out in December, 1861, to 
compel the discharge of the financial obligations incurred by that country I 
under treaty arrangements. But by April, 1862, it became clear to 
Spain and England that France had distinctly other purposes in this 
affair than those stated in the treaty of alliance. Napoleon's real in- 
tentions, shortly apparent, were the overthrow of the republic and the 
establishment of a monarchy in Mexico under a European prince. The 
Enghsh and Spaniards would give no sanction to such a scheme, and 
consequently entirely withdrew in April, 1862. The expedition now 
became one purely French. The question of financial honesty on the 
part of Mexico was lost sight of, and a war began, a war of aggression, 
entirely uncalled for, but a war which in the end punished its author 
more than it did the Mexicans, one of the most dishonorable, as it was 
one of the most costly and disastrous, for the Second Empire. 

Napoleon was a man of ideas, a man of imagination. Unfortunately 
his ideas were frequently vast yet vague, his imagination frequently 
Napoleon's unsound, deceptive. He evidently dreamed of building up 
purposes g^ Latin Empire in the New World, under his protection, a 

sort of bulwark and outpost of the Latin element, designed to hem in 
the overflowing Anglo-Saxon element. Thus his favorite theory of na- 
tionalities would win another victory; also the colonies of Spain and 
France would be more secure, French commerce would find new out- 
lets, the materials for French industries would be more easily procured. 
"And," said Napoleon, "we shall have established our beneficent in- 
fluence in the center of America." 

Mexico was a Republic but there was a faction among the Mexicans 
which wished to overthrow it. This faction, under French inspiration 
and direction, held an assembly which decreed that Mexico 
overthrows should henceforth be an Empire and that the imperial 
the Mexican crown should be offered to Archduke Maximilian of Aus- 
tria, brother of Francis Joseph, the Emperor of Austria. 
This assembly represented, perhaps, 350,000 people out of about 7,000-, 
000. It offered a fatal gift. This young prince of thirty-one was of at- 



THE EMPIRE OF MEXICO 353 

ractive and popular manners, and of liberal ideas. Young, handsome, 
ersatile, half poet, half scientist, he was living in a superb palace, 
liramar, overlooking the Adriatic, amid his collections, his objects of 
rt, and with the sea which was his passion always before him. From 
ut of this enchanting retreat he now emerged to become the central 
gure of a short and frightful tragedy. Mexico lured him to his doom, 
nfluenced by his own ambition and that of his spirited wife, Carlotta, 
taughter of Leopold I, King of Belgium, and receiving definite promises 
if French military support until 1867, he accepted the imperial crown 
,nd arrived in Mexico in May, 1864. 

This entire project, born in the brain of Napoleon III, was to prove 
Lopeless from the start, disastrous to ah who participated in it, to the 
lew Emperor and Empress, and to Napoleon. The diffi- jj^^^^^^^^g 
ulties confronting the new monarch were insuperable. A outcome of 
;uerilla warfare was carried on successfully by Juarez, *'^^^^" 
ising up the French soldiers and putting them on the 
lefensi^'e. Even the communications of the French army with the sea 
vere seriously threatened. Maximilian at last issued a decree that any 
inemies taken with arms would be summarily shot — a decree that made 
lim hated by all Mexicans, and that gave to the war a character of 
;xtreme atrocity. A greater danger threatened the new empire when 
general Lee surrendered at Appomattox. The United jj^^g^^gj^ti^j, 
5tates had looked from the first with disapprobation upon of the 
Napoleon's project. Now that the Civil War was^ over, Umted 
she threatened intervention. Napoleon was unwiUing to 
■isk a conflict with this country, and consequently promised to withdraw 
ns troops speedily from Mexico. Maximilian could not remain long an 
Emperor without Napoleon's support. His wife, Carlotta, returning 
:o Europe to persuade Napoleon in frantic personal interviews not to 
iesert them, received no promise of support from the man who had 
planned the whole adventure, and in the fearful agony of her' con- 
templation of the impending doom of her husband became msane. 
Maximilian was taken by the Mexicans and shot June 19, 1867. The 
phantom Empire vanished. 

A most expensive enterprise for the French Emperor. It had eaten 
into the financial resources of his country, already badly disorganized. 
It had prevented his playing a part in decisive events occurrmg m 
central Europe in 1864-66, in the Danish war, and the Austro-Prussian 



354 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 

war, the outcome of which was to alter so seriously the importance 

^. -, of France in Europe by the exaltation of an ambitious, 

Discomfiture r- j .11 

of Napo- aggressive, and powerful military state, Prussia. It had 

leon m damaged him morally before Europe by the desertion of 

his proteges to an appalling fate before the threats of the United States. 
He had squandered uselessly his military resources and had increased 
the national debt. It has been asserted that the Mexican war was as dis- 
astrous for Napoleon III as the Spanish war had been for Napoleon I. 
Feeling that his popularity was waning Napoleon decided to win 
over the Liberals, who had hitherto been his enemies, by granting in 

1868 certain reforms which they had constantly demanded, 
makes^*con- larger rights to the Legislative Chamber, greater freedom 
cessions to Qf ^^g press, the right, under certain conditions, to hold 

public meetings. The Empire thus entered upon a frankly 
liberal path. The result was not to strengthen, but greatly to weaken it. 
Many new journals were founded, in which it was assailed with amaz- 
ing bitterness. A remarkable freedom of speech characterized the last 
two years of Napoleon's reign. A movement to erect a monument to 
a republican deputy, Baudin, who had been shot on the barricades in 
1851 at the time of the coup d'etat, seemed to the Government to be 
too insulting. It prosecuted the men who were conducting the sub- 
scription. One of these was defended by a brilliant, impassioned young 
lawyer and orator from the south of France, thirty years of age, who 
was shortly to be a great figure in politics, a founder of the Third Re- 
public. Gambetta conducted himself not as a lawyer defending his 

client, but as an avenger of the wrongs of France for the 

emergence past seventeen years, impeaching bitterly the entire reign 

of Leon ^f Napoleon III. Particularly did he dwell upon the date 

Gambetta , ^ , ^, .,, . .. . , 

of December 2. The coup d etat, he said, was carried 

through by a crowd of unknown men "without talent, without honor, 

and hopelessly involved in debts and crimes." "These men pretend to 

have saved society. Do you save a country when you lay parricidal 

hands upon it?" The end of this remarkable discourse remains famous: 

" Listen, you who for seventeen years have been absolute master of 

France. The thing that characterizes you best, because it is evidence 

of your own remorse, is the fact that you have never dared to say: ' We 

will place among the solemn festivals of France, we will celebrate as a 

national anniversary, the Second of December.' . . . Well ! this anni- 



FRICTION BETWEEN FRANCE AND PRUSSIA 355 

versary we will take for ourselves; we will observe it always, always 
without fail; every year it shall be the anniversary of our dead, until 
the day when the country, having become master itself once more, shall 
impose upon you the great national expiation in the name of liberty, 
equality, and fraternity." 

This address had a prodigious effect. Nothing so defiant, so con- 
temptuous of the Government, had been heard in France since 185 1. 

Though Gambetta's client lost his case, it was generally ^.,, , 
..... ' ° •' Bitter at- 

ieit that the Lmpire emerged from that court-room soundly tacks upon 

beaten. It was clear that there was a party in existence N^P^^eon m 
bent upon revenge, and willing to use all the privileges a now liberal 
Emperor might grant, not gratefully, but as a means of completely 
annihilating the very Empire, a Republican party, aggressive, and grow- 
ing, already master of Paris, and organizing in the departments. 

Thus clouds were gathering, thicker and ever darker, around the 
throne of the Third Napoleon. There were domestic troubles, but, in 
the main, it was the foreign relations that inspired alarm and should 
have inspired caution. Over these years hung the German peril, the 
unmistakable challenge that lay in the astonishing success and the ag- 
gressive elation of Prussia. That was the sore point. The instinct of 
the French people saw in the battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, as they 
called it, a humiliating defeat for France, though it was a battle exclu- 
sively between Prussia and Austria, France being no party to the war. 
The instinct was largely right. At least the Peace of Prague involved 
and indicated the diminution of the authority and importance of France. 
For a reorganization so sweeping in central Europe, as the overthrow 
of Austria, her expulsion from Germany, and the consolidation and 
aggrandizement of Prussia, a powerful military state, upset the balance 
of power. A feeling of alarm spread through France. << Revenge 
"Revenge for Sadowa," was a cry often heard henceforth, for 
Its meaning was that if one state like Prussia should be 
increased in area and power, France also, for consenting to it, had a 
right to a proportionate increase, that the reciprocal relations might 
remain the same. 

From 1866 to 1870 the idea that ultimately a war would 
come between Prussia and France became familiar to the people 
and governments of both countries. Many Frenchmen desired "re- 
venge for Sadowa." Prussians were proud and elated at their two sue- 



356 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 

cessful wars, and intensely conscious of their new position in Europe. 

The newspapers of both countries during the next four years were full 

of crimination and recrimination, of abuse and taunt, the Government 

in neither case greatly discouraging their unwise conduct, at times even 

inspiring and directing it. Such an atmosphere was an excellent one 

^. , for ministers who wanted war to work in, and both France 

Bismarck re- . , , . ... 

gards a war and Prussia had just such mmisters. Bismarck believed 

with France g^^,]^ g^ ^^j. inevitable, and, in his opinion, it was desirable 
as inevitable . ... 

as the only way of completing the unification of Germany, 

since Napoleon would never willingly consent to the extension of the 

Confederation to include the South German states. All that he desired 

was that it should come at precisely the right moment, when Prussia 

was entirely ready, and that it should come by act of France, so 

that Prussia could pose before Europe as merely defending herself 

against a wanton aggressor. 

With responsible statesmen in such a temper it was not difficult to 
bring about a war. And yet the Franco-Prussian war broke most unex- 
pectedly, like a thunderstorm, over Europe. Undreamed of July i, 
1870, it began July 15. It came in a roundabout way. The Spanish 
throne was vacant, as a revolution had driven the monarch, Queen Isa- 
bella, out of that country. On July 2, news reached Paris that Leopold 
of Hohenzollern, a relative of the King of Prussia, had accepted the 
Spanish crown. Bismarck was behind this Hohenzollern candidacy, 
The Hohen- zealously furthering it, despite the fact that he knew Na- 
zollern poleon's feeling of hostility to it. Great was the indig- 

nation of the French papers and Parliament and a most 
dangerous crisis developed rapidly. Other powers intervened, laboring 
in the interests of peace. On July 12, it was announced that the 
Hohenzollern candidacy was withdrawn. 

The tension was immediately relieved; the war scare was over. 
Two men, however, were not pleased by this outcome, Bismarck, whose 
intrigue was now foiled and whose humiliation was so great that he 
thought he must resign and retire into private life, and Gramont, the 
French Minister of Foreign Affairs, a reckless, blustering politician who 
was not satisfied with the diplomatic victory he had won but wished to 
win another which would increase the discomfiture of Prussia. The 
French ministry now made an additional demand that the King of 
Prussia should promise that this Hohenzollern candidacy should never 



FRANCE DECLARES WAR 357 

be renewed. The King declined to do so and authorized Bismarck to 
publish an account of the incident. Here was Bismarck's The Ems 
opportunity which he used ruthlessly and joyously to pro- despatch 
voke the French to declare war. His account, as he himself says, was in- 
tended to be " a red flag for the Gallic bull." The efifect of its publication 
was instantaneous. It aroused the indignation of both countries to fever 
heat. The Prussians thought that their King, the French that their am- 
bassador had been insulted. As if this were not sufficient the news- 
papers of both countries teemed with false, abusive, and inflammatory 
accounts. The voice of the advocates of peace was drowned in the 
general clamor. The head of the French ministry declared that he 
accepted this war "with a light heart." This war declared by France 
on July 15 grew directly out of mere diplomatic fencing, ^j^^ ^^ 
The French people did not desire it, only the people of Paris. Prussian 
inflamed by an official press. Indeed, until it was declared, ^" °* ^^'^^ 
the French people hardly knew of the matter of dispute. It came upon 
them unexpectedly. The war was made by the responsible heads of 
two Governments. It was in its origin in no sense national in either 
country. Its immediate occasion was trivial. But it was the cause of 
a remarkable display of patriotism in both countries. 

The war upon which the French ministry entered with so light a 
heart was destined to prove the most disastrous in the history of their 
country. In every respect it was begun under singularly ggyth Ger- 
inauspicious circumstances. France declared war upon man states 
Prussia alone, but in a manner that threw the South Ger- ^°"^ 
man states, upon whose support she had counted, directly into the camp 
of Bismarck. They regarded the French demand, that the King of 
Prussia should pledge himself for aU time to forbid the Prince of Hohen- 
zollern's candidature, as unnecessary and insulting. At once Bavaria 
and Baden and Wiirtemberg joined the campaign on the side of Prussia. 

The French military authorities made the serious mistake of grossly 
underestimating the difficulty of the task before them. Incredible lack 
of preparation was revealed at once. The French army was poorly 
equipped, and was far inferior in numbers and in the ability of its com- 
manders to the Prussian army. With the exception of a ^j^^ Germans 
few ineffectual successes the war was a long series of re- invade 
verses for the French. The Germans crossed the Rhine 
into Alsace and Lorraine, and succeeded, after several days of very heavy 



358 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 

fighting, in shutting up Bazaine, with the principal French army, in 
Metz, a strong fortress which the Germans then besieged. 

On September i, another French army, with which was the Emperor, 
was defeated at Sedan and was obUged on the following day to sur- 
The battle render to the Germans. Napoleon himself became a pris- 
of Sedan ^j^gj- Qf t^^lv. The French lost, on these two days, in killed, 

wounded, or taken prisoners, nearly one hundred and twenty thousand 
men. 

Disasters so appalling resounded throughout the world. France no 
longer had an army; one had capitulated at Sedan; the other was locked 
up in Metz. The early defeats of August had been announced in Paris 
by the Government as victories. The deception could no longer be 
maintained. On September 3 this despatch was received from the 
Emperor: "The army has been defeated and is captive; I myself am 
a prisoner." As a prisoner he was no longer head of the government of 
France; there was, as Thiers said, a "vacancy of power." On Sunday, 
September 4, the Legislative Body was convened. But it had no time 
to deUberate. The mob invaded the hall shouting, "Down with the 
Empire ! Long live the Republic ! " Gambetta, Jules Favre, and Jules 
The fall of Ferry, followed by the crowd, proceeded to the Hotel de 
the Empire yj^jg g^j^jj there proclaimed the Republic. The Empress 
fled. A Government of National Defense was organized, with General 
Trochu at its head, which was the actual government of France during 
the rest of the war. 

The Franco-German war lasted about six months, from the first of 
August, 1870, when fighting began, to about the first of February, 1871. 
It falls naturally into two periods, the imperial and the republican. 
During the first, which was limited to the month of August, the regular 
armies were, as we have seen, destroyed or bottled up. Then the Em- 
pire collapsed and the Emperor was a prisoner in Germany. The sec- 
ond period lasted five months. France, under the Government of 
National Defense, made a remarkably courageous and spirited defense 
tmder the most discouraging conditions. 

The Germans, leaving a sufficient army to carry on the siege of 
Metz, advanced toward Paris. They began the siege of that city on 
September 19. This siege, one of the most famous in history, lasted 
four months, and astonished Europe. Immense stores had been collected 
in the city, the citizens were armed, and the defense was energetic. 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS 



359 



The Parisians hoped to hold out long enough to enable new armies to 
be organized and diplomacy possibly to intervene. To accomplish the 
former a delegation from the Government of National Defense, headed 
by Gambetta, escaped from Paris by balloon, and established a branch 
seat of government first at Tours, then at Bordeaux. Gambetta, by his 

immense energy, his eloquence, his 
patriotism, was able to raise new 
armies, whose resistance aston- 
ished the Germans, but as they 
had not time to be thoroughly 
trained, they were unsuccessful. 
They could not break the immense 
circle of iron that surrounded Paris, 
After the overthrow of the Empire 
the war was reduced to the siege 
of Paris, and the attempts of these 
improvised armies to break that 
siege. These at- The faU of 
tempts were rendered ^®*^ 
all the more hopeless by the fall of 
Metz (October 27, 1870). Six 
thousand officers and 173,000 men 
were forced by impending starva- 
tion to surrender, with hundreds 
of cannon and immense war sup- 
plies, the greatest capitulation 
"recorded in the history of civilized nations." A month earlier, on 
September 27, Strassburg had surrendered and 19,000 soldiers had be- 
come prisoners of war. 

The capitulation of Metz was particularly disastrous because it 
made possible the sending of more German armies to reenforce the 
siege of Paris, and to attack the forces which Gambetta was, by prodi- 
gies of effort, creating in the rest of France. These armies could not get 
to the relief of Paris, nor could the troops within Paris break through to 
them. The siege became simply a question of endurance. 

The Germans began the bombardment of the city early in January. 
Certain sections suffered terribly, and were ravaged by fires. Famine 
stared the Parisians in the face. After November 20 there was no more 




Leon Gambetta 
From a photograph. 



360 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 

beef or lamb to be had; after December 15 only thirty grams of 
The siege horse meat a day per person, which, moreover, cost about 
of Paris ^^Q dollars and a half a pound; after January 15 the amount 

of bread, a wretched stuff, was reduced to three hundred grams. People 
ate anything they could get, dogs, cats, rats. The market price for rats 
was two francs apiece. By the 31st of January, there would be nothing 
left to eat. Additional suffering arose from the fact that the winter was 
one of the coldest on record. Coal and firewood were exhausted. Trees 
in the Champs Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne were cut down, and 
fires built in the public squares for the poor. Wine froze in casks. On 
January 28, with famine almost upon her, Paris capitulated after an 
heroic resistance. 

The terms of peace granted by Bismarck were extraordinarily severe. 
They were laid down in the Treaty of Frankfort, signed May 10, 1871. 
The Treaty France was forced to cede Alsace and a large part of Lor- 
of Frankfort raine, including the important fortress of Metz. She must 
pay an absolutely unprecedented war indemnity of five thousand mil- 
lion francs (a billion dollars) within three years. She was to support a 
German army of occupation, which should be gradually withdrawn as 
the installments of the indemnity were paid. 

The Treaty of Frankfort has remained the open sore of Europe since 
1871. France could never forget or forgive the deep humiliation of it. 
The enormous fine could, with the lapse of time, have been overlooked, 
but never the seizure of the two provinces by mere force and against 
the unanimous and passionate protest of the people of Alsace and 
Lorraine. Moreover the eastern frontier of France was seriously 
weakened. 

Meanwhile other events had occurred as a result of this war. Italy 
had completed her unification by seizing the city of Rome, thus termi- 
Fall of the nating the temporal rule of the Pope. The Pope had been 
Temporal supported there by a French garrison. This was with- 

°^" drawn as a result of the battle of Sedan, and the troops of 

Victor Emmanuel attacked the Pope's own troops, defeated them after 
Completion ^ slight resistance, and entered Rome on the 20th of Sep- 
of Italian tember, 1870. The unity of Italy was jiow consummated 

and Rome became the capital of the kingdom. 

A more important consequence of the war was the completion of 
the unification of Germany, and the creation of the present German 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE PROCLAIMED 



361 



Empire. Bismarck had desired a war with France as necessary to com- 
plete the unity of Germany. Whether necessary or not, at q^^ j .; 
least that end was now secured. During the war negotia- of German 
tions were carried on between Prussia and the South Ger- "^^i^*^^^'*"^ 
man states. Treaties were drawn up and the confederation was widened 




The Proclamation of Willi \m 1 as (ilrm.an Emperor, Versailles, January 18, 1S71 
From the painting by Anton von Werner. 

to include all the German states. On January 18, 1871, in the royal 
palace of Versailles, King William I was proclaimed German Emperor. 
The war of 1866 had resulted in the expulsion of Austria from Ger- 
many and from Italy. The war of 1870 completed the unification of 
both countries. Berlin became the capital of a federal Empire, Rome 
of a unified Kingdom. 



362 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 

REFERENCES 

The Mexican Expedition: Forbes, Life of Napoleon the Third, Chap. XI, pp. 
214-237; Andrews, Historical Development of Modern Europe, Vol. II, pp. 173-177; 
Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, pp. 968-971. 

The Liberal Empire: Fisher, Bonapartism, pp. 100-123; Lebon, Modern France, 
Chap. XIII, pp. 313-337; Forbes, Chap. XII, pp. 238-260; Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, Vol. XI, pp. 467-493. 

HoHENZOLLERN CANDIDACY AND THE Ems DESPATCH: Munroe Smith, Bismarck, 
pp. 49-57; Headlam, Bismarck, Chap. XIII, pp. 315-345; Fyffe, pp. 978-984; Rose, 
Development of European Nations, Vol. I, pp. 45-57; Anderson, Constitutions and Docu- 
ments, No. 121, pp. 593-594; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European 
History, Vol. II, pp. 158-159. 

The Franco-German War: Murdock, Reconstruction of Europe, Chaps. XXIV- 
XXX; Rose, Vol. I, Chaps. II and III, pp. 58-108; Fyffe, pp. 984-1019; Henderson, 
Short History of Germany, Vol. II, pp. 422-450; Wright, C. H. C, ^ History of the 
Third French Republic, Chaps. I and II, pp. 1-30; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 
XI, Chap. XXI, pp. 576-612. 

Proclamation of the German Empire: Rose, Vol. I, pp. 153-163; Robinson 
and Beard, Vol. II, pp. 163-165. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The Franco-German war completed the unification of Germany. 
The Empire was proclaimed January i8, 1871, in the old capital of the 
French monarchy. The constitution of the new state was titution 

adopted immediately after the close of the war and went of the new 
into force April 16, 187 1. In most respects it is simply the ^^^^J^ 
constitution of the North German Confederation of 1867. 
The name of Confederation gives way to that of Empire and the name 
of Emperor is substituted for that of President. But the Empire is a 
confederation, consisting of twenty-five states and one Imperial Terri- 
tory, Alsace-Lorraine. The King of Prussia is ipso facto The 
German Emperor. The legislative power rests with the Emperor 
Bundesrath, or Federal Council, and the Reichstag. The Emperor de- 
clares war with the consent of the Bundesrath, he is commander-in- 
chief of the army and navy, he has charge of foreign affairs and makes 
treaties, subject to the Hmitation that certain kinds of treaties must be 
ratified by Parliament. He is assisted by a Chancellor, whom he ap- 
points, and whom he removes, who is not responsible to Parliament 
but to him alone. Under the Chancellor are various secretaries of state, 
who simply administer departments, but who do not form a cabinet 
responsible to Parliament. 

Laws are made by the Bundesrath and the Reichstag. The Bundes- 
rath is the most powerful body in the Empire. It possesses legislative, 
executive, and judicial functions and is a sort of diplomatic ^^^ 
assembly. It represents the states, that is, the rulers of Bundesrath 
the twenty-five states of which the Empire consists. It is ""^J^J' 
composed of delegates appointed by the rulers. Unlike 
the Senate of the United States, the states of Germany are not repre- 
sented equally in the Bundesrath but most unequally. There are fifty- 
eight members. Of these Prussia has seventeen, Bavaria six, Saxony 

363 



364 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

and Wiirtemberg four each; others have three or two; and seventeen 

of the states have only one apiece. The Bundesrath is really the old 

Diet of Frankfort of 18 15, carried over into the new system, with certain 

changes rendered necessary by the intervening history. The members 

are really diplomats, representing the numerous sovereigns of Germany. 

They do not vote individually but each state votes as a unit and as the 

ruler instructs. Thus the seventeen votes of Prussia are cast always as 

a unit, on one side or the other, and as the King of Prussia 
The Bundes- ,. ^, ^ , , . , ,., . , 1 , 

rath not a directs. The Bundesrath is not a deliberative body be- 

deliberative cause its members vote according to instructions from the 
home governments. Its members are not free to vote as 
they see fit. It is in reality an assembly of the sovereigns of Germany. 
Its powers are very extensive. It is the most important element of the 
legislature as most legislation begins in it, its consent is necessary to 
all legislation, and every law passed by the Reichstag is after that sub- 
mitted to it for ratification or rejection. It is therefore the chief source 
of legislation. Representing the princes of Germany, it is a thoroughly 
monarchical institution, a bulwark of the monarchical spirit. As a 
matter of fact it is generally controlled by Prussia, although there 
have been a few cases since 187 1 in which the will of Prussia has been 
overridden. Its proceedings are secret. 

The Reichstag is the only popular element in the Empire. It con- 
sists of 397 members, elected for a term of five years by the voters, that 
The is, by men twenty-five years of age or older. The powers 

Reichstag qJ |-j^g Reichstag are inferior to those of most of the other 

popular chambers of Europe. It neither makes nor unmakes ministries. 
While it, in conjunction with the Bundesrath, votes the appropriations, 
certain ones, notably those for the army, are voted for a period of years. 
Its consent is required for new taxes, whereas taxes previously levied con- 
tinue to-be collected without the consent of Parliament being secured 
again. The matters on which Parliament may legislate are those con- 
cerning army, navy, commerce, tariffs, railways, postal system, tele- 
graphs, civil and criminal law. On matters not within the jurisdiction 
of the Empire each state legislates as it chooses. In reality the Reichs- 
tag is little more than an advisory body, with the power of veto of new 
legislation. The mainspring of power is elsewhere — in the Bundesrath 
and in the Kingdom of Prussia. 

The German Empire is unique among federal governments in that 



THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF GERMANY 365 

it is a confederation of monarchical states, which, moreover, are very 
unequal in size and population, ranging from Prussia with 
a population of 40,000,000, and covering two-thirds of the tion^of ^ ^^^' 
territory, down to Schaumburg-Lippe, with a population monarchical 
of 45,000. Three members of the Empire are republics: 
Liibeck, Bremen, and Hamburg. The rest are monarchies. All have 
constitutions and legislatures, more or less liberal. This confederation 
differs from other governments of its class in that the states are of un- 
equal voting power in both houses, one state largely preponderating, 
Prussia, a fact explained by its great size, its population, and the impor- 
tance of its historic role. 

The chief representative of the Emperor is the Chancellor. The Chan- 
cellor is not lilvc the Prime Minister of England, simply one of the minis- 
ters. He stands distinct from and above all federal officials. The 
There is no imperial cabinet in the German Empire, and cabi- Chancellor 
net, or what is correctly called responsible, government does not exist. 
The Chancellor is appointed by the Emperor, is removed by the Emperor, 
is responsible to the Emperor, and is not responsible to either Bundesrath 
or Reichstag. Either or both assemblies might vote down his proposals, 
might even vote lack of confidence. It would make no difference to 
him. He would not resign. The only support he needs is that of the 
Emperor. 

There are other so-called ministers, such as those of foreign affairs, 
of the interior, of education. But these are not like the members of the 
cabinet of the United States or of England. They are subordinates of 
the Chancellor, carrying out his will, and not for a moment thinking of 
resigning because of any adverse vote in the popular house, the Reichs- 
tag. The powers of the Chancellor are great, but as his tenure is abso- 
lutely dependent upon the favor of the Emperor this really means that 
the power of the Emperor is great and is irresponsible. The Chancellor 
may be an imposing figure in the state, as Bismarck was; he may be a 
mere agent of the Emperor, as Bismarck's successors have all been — for 
the reason that William II, unlike William I, has intended to rule and 
has really been the Chancellor himself. 

This is the most important characteristic of the German Empire. 
Unlike England, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian 
states, the cabinet system of government does not exist in Germany. 
The executive is not subject to the legislative power; ministers may 



366 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

not be turned out of office by adverse majorities. Germany is a con- 
stitutional state, in the sense that it has a written con- 
The parUa-^^ stitution. It is not a parHamentary state. ParUament 
tem does not does . not have the controUing voice in the state. The 
^rmamv monarchs, and particularly the monarch of Prussia, have 

that. This was Bismarck's great achievement. His vic- 
iory over the Prussian Parliament had this effect, that it checked the 
Bismarck's growth of responsible government in Prussia. So far as 

crowning ensuring self-government, or a large measure of it, to the 

triumph over o o ; o 7 ^ 

parliamentary people of Germany is concerned, the present constitution, 
institutions largely the work of Bismarck, is much inferior to the 
constitution framed by the Parliament of Frankfort in 1848. 

The Emperor gains his great power from the fact that he is King of 
Prussia. He is Emperor because he is King. As King he has very ex- 

^^ tensive functions. His functions as Emperor and King are 

The great . . . . , , 

powers of SO connected that it is not easy to distinguish them. As a 

the King of matter of fact the King of Prussia is very nearly an abso- 
lute monarch. The Prussian Parliament is far less likely 
to oppose his will than is the Imperial Parliament which, itself, has 
shown only slight independence since 1871, There is no parliamentary 
government in Prussia any more than there is in the Empire. 

Since 1871, Germany has had three Emperors, William I (1871-88), 
Frederick III (March 9- June 15, 1888), and William II, since 1888. 

The history since 1871 naturally falls into two periods, which are in 
many respects well defined, the reign of William I and the reign of 
William II. During the former the real ruler was Prince Bismarck, 
Reign of ^^^ Chancellor, whose position was one of immense pres- 

Emperor tige and authority. Having in nine years made the King, 

whom he found upon the point of abdicating, the most 
powerful ruler in Europe, and having given Germans unity, he remained 
the chief figure in the state twenty years longer until his resignation in 
1890. During the latter period, the reign of William II, the Emperor 
has been the real head of the government. 

THE KULTURKAMPF 

No sooner was the new Empire established than it was torn by a 
fierce religious conflict that lasted many years, the so-called Kultur- 
kampf, "war in defense of civilization," a contest between the State 



CONFLICT OF CHURCH AND STATE 367 

and the Roman Catholic Church. The wars with Austria and France 
engendered- animosity in the field of religion as they were a religious 
victories of a Protestant state over two strongly Catholic conflict 
powers. The loss of the Pope's temporal power in 1870 embittered many 
Catholics still further and a party was formed in Germany, the Center, 
to work for the restoration of the temporal power and for the general 
interests of the Church. In the first elections to the Reichstag this party 
won sixty-three votes. Bismarck did not like this appearance of a cleri- 
cal party in the political arena. He was of the opinion that the Church 
should keep out of politics. Moreover, he decidedly objected to what 
he understood to be the claims of the Church that in certain matters, 
which he regarded as belonging exclusively to the State, the Church was 
superior to the secular authority and had the primary right to the alle- 
giance of Catholics. 

The immediate cause of the Kulturkampf was a quarrel among 
Catholics themselves. The proclamation by the Vatican Council in 
1870 of the new dogma of papal infallibility had been op- CJ^^ggg 
posed in the Council by the German bishops. But they and of the 
the priests of Germany were now required to subscribe to it. " ^ ^™^ 
The large majority did, but some refused. The latter called themselves 
Old Catholics, proclaiming their adherence to the Church as hitherto 
defined, but rejecting this addition to their creed as false. The bishops 
who accepted it demanded that the Old Catholics should be removed 
from their positions in the universities and schools. The government of 
Prussia refused to remove them. A religious war was shortly in progress 
which grew more bitter each year. First the Imperial Parliament for- 
bade the religious orders to engage in teaching; then, in 1872, it expelled 
the Jesuits from Germany. Of all legislation enacted dur- The Falk 
ing this struggle the Falk or May Laws of the Prussian ^^^^ 
legislature were the most important (passed in May of three successive 
years, 1873, 1874, 1875). Bismarck supported them on the ground that 
the contest was political, not religious, that there must be no state within 
the state, no power considering itself superior to the established author- 
ities. He also believed that the whole movement was conducted by 
those opposed to Germany unity. Anything that imperiled that unity 
must be crushed. These May Laws gave the state large powers over 
the education and appointment of the clergy. They forbade the Roman 
Catholic Church to intervene in any way in civil affairs, or to coerce 



368 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

citizens or oflficials; they required that all clergymen should pass the 
regular state examination of the gymnasium, and should study theol- 
ogy for three years at a state university; that all Catholic seminaries 
should be subject to state inspection. They also established control 
over the appointment and dismissal of priests. A law was passed mak- 
ing civil marriage compulsory. This was to reduce the power that priests 
could exercise by refusing to marry a Catholic and a Protestant, and 
now even Old Catholics. Religious orders were suppressed. 

Against these laws the Catholics indignantly protested. The Pope 
declared them null and void; the clergy refused to obey them, and the 
Conflict of faithful rallied to the support of the clergy. To enforce 
Church and them the government resorted to fines, imprisonment, 
deprivation- of salary, ex-pulsion from the country. The 
conflict spread everywhere, into little villages, as well as into the cities, 
into the universities and schools. It dominated politics for several 
years. The national life was much disturbed, yet the end was not ac- 
complished. In the elections of 1877 the Center succeeded in returning 
ninety-two members, and was the largest party in the Reichstag. It 
was evident that the policy was a failure. Other questions were becom- 
ing prominent, of an economic and social character, and Bismarck wished 
to be free to handle them. Particularly requiring attention, in his opin- 
ion, and that of William I, was a new and most menacing party, the 
Bismarck's Socialist. Bismarck therefore prepared to retreat. The 
retreat ^eath of Pius IX in 1878, and the election of Leo XIII, a 

more conciliatory and diplomatic Pope, facilitated the change of policy. 
The anti-clerical legislation was gradually repealed, except that con- 
cerning civil marriage. In return for the measures surrendered Bis- 
marck gained the support of the Center for laws which he now had more 
at heart. The only permanent result of this religious conflict was the 
strengthening of the Center or Catholic party, which has been ever since 
the strongest party in this Protestant country. 

BISMARCK AND SOCIALISM 

It was in 1878 that Bismarck turned his attention to the Socialist 
party which had for some time been growing, and now seemed menac- 
The growth ing. That party was founded by Ferdinand Lassalle, a 
of Socialism Socialist of 1848, much influenced by the French school 
of that day. The party, originally appearing in 1848, was shortly 



THE PROGRAMME OF THE SOCIALISTS 369 

broken up by persecution and did not reappear until 1863. In 1865 
Lassalle founded a journal called the Social Democrat. In opposition 
to this party a somewhat different Socialist group was led by Karl 
Marx. These two were rivals until 1875, w^hen a fusion was effected 
and the party platform was adopted at Gotha. This platform de- 
nounced the existing organization of the economic system, the 
ownership of the means of production solely by the capitalist class 
and in its interest; it demanded that the state should own them 
and should conduct industries in the interest of society, the largest 
part of which consists of laborers, and that the products of labor 
should be justly distributed; it aimed at a free state and a socialistic 
society. Needless to say Germany was neither at that Demands of 
time. That Germany might be a free state the Socialists ^^ SociaUsts 
demanded universal suffrage for all over twenty years of age, women as 
well as men, secret ballot, freedom of thp press, freedom of association, 
and indeed the greatest extension of political rights in a democratic 
direction, free and compulsory education, and certain immediate eco- 
nomic and social reforms, such as a progressive income tax, a normal 
working day, and a free Sunday, prohibition of child labor and of all 
forms of labor by women which were dangerous to health or morality, 
laws for the protection of the life and health of workingmen and for the 
inspection of mines and factories. In 187 1 the Socialists elected two 
members to the Reichstag, three years later their representation in- 
creased to nine, and in 1877 to twelve. Their popular votes were: in 
1871, 124,655; in 1874, 351.952; and in 1877, 493.288. 

The steady growth of this party aroused the alarm of the ruling 
classes of Germany, which stood for monarchy, aristocracy, the existing 
economic system, while its aims were destructive of all p^^^^ ^j 
these. Bismarck had long hated the Socialists, as was the mUng 

classes 

natural considering his training and environment, and con- 
sidering also the declarations of the Socialists themselves. Their leaders, 
Liebknecht and Bebel, had opposed the North German Confederation, 
the war with France, the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. The 
Socialists expressed openly and freely their entire opposition to the 
existing order in Germany. It was only a question of time when 
they must clash violently with the man who had helped so power- 
fully to create that order, and whose life work henceforth was to con- 
solidate it. Again, the Socialist party was radically democratic, and 



370 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Bismarck hated democracy. A conflict between men representing 
the very opposite poles of opinion was inevitable. Bismarck deter- 
mined to crush the Socialists once for all. He would use two methods; 
one stern repression of Socialist agitation, the other amelioration of the 
conditions of the working class, conditions which alone, he believed, 
caused them to listen to the false and deceptive doctrines of the 
Socialist leaders. 

First came repression. In October, 1878, a law of great severity, 
intended to stamp out completely all Socialist propaganda, was passed 

by the Imperial Parliament. It forbade all associations, 
Severe j ir j 

measures meetings, and publications having for their object "the 

against the subversion of the social order," or in which "socialistic 
Socialists 

tendencies" should appear. It gave the police large 

powers of interference, arrest, and expulsion from the country. Martial 
law might be proclaimed where desirable, which meant that, as far as 
Socialists were concerned, the ordinary courts would cease to protect 
individual liberties. Practically a mere decree of a police official would 
suffice to expel from Germany anyone suspected or accused of being a 
Socialist. This law was enacted for a period of four years. It was 
later twice renewed and remained in force until 1890. It was vigor- 
ously applied. According to statistics furnished by the Socialists 
themselves, 1400 publications were suppressed, 1500 persons were 
imprisoned, 900 banished, during these twelve years. One might not 
read the works of Lassalle, for instance, even in a public library. 

This law, says a biographer of Bismarck, is very disappointing. 
" We find the Government again having recourse to the same means for 
Their checking and guarding opinion which Metternich had used 

failure £f|-y years before." ^ It was, moreover, an egregious fail- 

ure. For twelve years the Socialists carried on their propaganda in 
secret. It became evident that their power lay in their ideas and in 
the economic conditions of the working classes, rather than in formal 
organizations, which might be broken up. A paper was published for 
them in Switzerland and every week thousands of copies found their 
way into the hands of workingmen in Germany, despite the utmost 
vigilance of the police. Persecution in their case, as in that of the Ro- 
man Catholics, only rendered the party more resolute and active. At 
first it seemed that the law would realize the aims of its sponsors, for 
^ Headlam, Bismarck, 409. 



STATE INSURANCE 371 

in the elections of 1881, the first after its passage, the Socialist vote 
fell from about 493,000 to about 312,000. But in 1884 it 
rose to 549,000; in 1887 to 763,000; in 1890 to 1,427,000, grTwtTo'f 
resulting in the election of thirty-five members to the *® Socialist 
Reichstag. In that year the laws were not renewed. The ^^^ 
Socialists came out of their contest with Bismarck with a popular and 
parliamentary vote increased threefold. Bismarck, true to his funda- 
mental belief that difficult opponents are best put down by force, not 
won by persuasion, had attempted here, as in the Kulturkampf, to settle 
an annoying question by arbitrary and despotic measures enforced 
ruthlessly by the police and sacrificing what are regarded in many other 
countries as the most precious rights of the individual. 

But he had at no time intended to rest content with merely repres- 
sive measures. He had also intended to win the working classes away 
from the Socialist party by enacting certain laws favoring them, by trying 
to convince them that the State was their real benefactor and was deeply 
interested in their welfare. 

The method by which Bismarck proposed to improve the condition 

of the working class was by an elaborate and comprehensive system of 

insurance against the misfortunes and vicissitudes of life, 

. Vanous 

agamst sickness, accident, old age, and incapacity. It was forms of 

his desire that any workingman incapacitated in any of insurance 
these ways should not be exposed to the possibility of be- 
coming a pauper, but should receive a pension from the state. His 
policy was called State Socialism. His proposals met with vehement 
opposition, both in the Reichstag and among influential state 
classes outside. It was only slowly that he carried them Socialism 
through, the Sickness Insurance Law in 1883, the Accident Insurance 
Laws in 1884 and 1885, and the Old Age Insurance Law in 1889. These 
laws are very complicated and cannot be described here at length. 

Such was Bismarck's contribution to the solution of the social ques- 
tion, which grew to such commanding importance as the nineteenth 
century wore on. In this legislation Bismarck was a pio- Bismarck a 
neer. His ideas have been studied widely in other countries, P»oneer 
and his example followed in some. 

The Socialists did not cooperate with him in the passage of these 
laws, which they denounced as entirely inadequate to solve the social 
evils, as only a slight step in the right direction. Nor did Bismarck 



372 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

wish their support. They were Social Democrats. Democracy he hated. 
N t suD- Sociahsm of the state, controlled by a powerful monarch, 

ported by was one thing. Socialism carried through by' the people 
t e oci s s jjg^jgyji^g jn a democratic government, opposed to the ex- 
isting order in government and society, a very different thing. At the 
very moment that Bismarck secured the passage of the Accident Insur- 
ance Bill he also demanded the renewal of the law against the Socialists. 
His prophecy, that if these laws were passed the Socialists would sound 
their bird call in vain, has not been fulfilled. That party has grown 
greatly and almost uninterruptedly ever since he began his war upon it. 

BISMARCK AND THE POLICY OF PROTECTION 

In 1879, Bismarck brought about a profound change in the financial 

and industrial policy of Germany by inducing Parliament to abandon 

the policy of a low tariff, and comparative free trade, and 
Bismarck . . 

adopts a to adopt a system of high tariff and pronounced protection^ 

policy of jjjg purposes were two-fold. He wished to increase the 

protection . , ^ . . . , . 

revenue of the Empire and to encourage native industries. 
In adopting the principle of protection he was not influenced, he asserted, 
by the theories of economists, but by his own observation of facts. He 
observed that, while England was the only nation following a policy of 
free trade, France and Austria and Russia and the United States were 
pronounced believers in protection and that it was too much to ask that 
Germany should permanently remain the dupe of an amiable error. He 
said that owing to her low tariff Germany had been the dumping ground 
for the over-production of other countries. Now industries must be 
protected that they might flourish and that they might have at least 
the home market. As this policy had proved successful in other coun- 
tries, notably in the United States, he urged that Germans follow their 
example. 

Bismarck won the day, though not without difficulty. Germany 
entered upon a period of protection, which, growing higher and applied 
to more and more industries, has continued ever since. Bismarck be- 
lieved that Germany must become rich in order to be strong; that she 
The system could only become rich by manufactures; and that she 
gradually could have manufactures only by giving them protection. 

*^^ ^ The system was worked out gradually and piecemeal, as he 

could not csLvry his whole plan at once. By means of the tariff Bismarck 



COLONIAL POLICIES 373 

wished to assure Germans the home market. Not only has that been 
largely accomplished, but by its means the foreign market also has been 
widened. By offering concessions to foreign nations for concessions 
from them, Germany has gained for her manufactured products an en- 
trance into many other countries, which was denied them before. The 
prodigious expansion of German industry after 1880 is generally regarded 
in Germany as a vindication of this policy. 

ACQUISITION OF COLONIES 

One of the important features of the closing years of Bismarck's 
political career was the beginning of a German colonial empire. In his 
earlier years Bismarck did not believe in Germany's at- 
tempting the acquisition of colonies. In 1871 he refused ginning' of 
to demand as prize of war any of the French colonial pos- ^ colonial 
sessions. He believed that Germany should consolidate, 
and should not risk incurring the hostility of other nations by entering 
upon the path of colonial rivalry. But colonies, nevertheless, were being 
founded under the spirit of private initiative. Energetic merchants 
from Hamburg and Bremen established trading stations in Africa, and 
the islands of the Pacific, for the purpose of selling their goods and ac- 
quiring tropical products, such as cocoa, coffee, rubber, spices. The aid 
of the Government was invoked at various times, but Bismarck held 
aloof. The interest aroused in the exploits of these private companies 
gave rise towards 1880 to a definite colonial party and the formation of 
a Colonial Society, which has since become important. 

The change in the policy of the Government, however, from one of 
aloofness to one of energetic participation and acquisition of colonies 
was largely a result of the adoption of the policy of pro- 
tection and active governmental encouragement of manu- the adoption 

factures and commerce. In the debate on the tariff bill of °l the policy 

of protection 
1879 Bismarck said that it was desirable to protect manu- 
factures, that thus a greater demand for labor would arise, that more 
people could live in Germany, and that therefore the emigration which 
had for years drawn tens of thousands from the country, particularly to 
the United States, would be decreased. But to develop manufactures 
to the utmost, Germany must have new markets for her products; 
and here colonies would be useful. In 1884 he adopted a vigorous colo- 
nial policy, supporting and expanding the work of* the private mer- 



374 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

chants and travelers. In that year Germany seized a number of points 
Energetic ^^ Africa, in the southwest, the west, and the east. A 

intervention period of diplomatic activity began, leading in the next 
"^ ^^^^ few years to treaties with England and other powers, re- 

sulting in the fixing of the boundaries of the various claimants to 
African territory. This is the partition of Africa described elsewhere.^ 
Germany thus acquired a scattered African empire of great size, con- 
The German sisting of Kamerun, Togoland, German Southwest Africa, 
colonies German East Africa; also a part of New Guinea. Later 

some of the Samoan Islands came into her possession, and in 1899 she 
purchased the Caroline and the Ladrone Islands, excepting Guam, from 
Spain for about four million dollars. 

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 

While domestic affairs formed the chief concern of Bismarck after 
the war with France, yet he followed the course of foreign affairs with 
the same closeness of attention that he had shown before, and manipu- 
lated them with the same display of subtlety and audacity that had 
characterized his previous diplomatic career. His great achievement in 
The Triple diplomacy in these years was the formation of the Triple 
Alliance Alliance, an achievement directed, like all the actions of his 

career, toward the consolidation and exaltation of his country. The 
origin of this alliance is really to be found in the Treaty of Frankfort, 
which sealed the humiliation of France. The wresting from France of 
Alsace and Lorraine inevitably rendered that country desirous of a war 
of revenge, of a war for their recovery. This has remained the open 
sore of Europe since 187 1, occasioning numerous, incontestable, and wide- 
spread evils. Firmly resolved to keep what he had won, Bismarck's 
chief consideration was to render such a war hopeless, therefore, 
perhaps, impossible. France must be isolated so completely that 
she would not dare to move. This was accomplished, first by the 
Isolation of friendly understanding brought about by Bismarck between 
France i\^q three rulers of eastern Europe, the Emperors of Ger- 

many, Russia, and Austria. But this understanding was shattered by 
events in the Balkan peninsula during the years from 1876 to 1878. In. 
the Balkans, Russia and Austria were rivals, and their rivalry was 
thrown into high relief at the Congress of Berlin over which Bismarck 

' See Chapter XXVIII. 



THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 375 

presided. Russia, unaided, had carried on a war with Turkey, and had 
imposed the Treaty of San Stefano upon her conquered enemy, only to 
find that Europe would not recognize that treaty, but insisted upon 
its revision at an international congress, and at that congress she found 
Bismarck, to whom she had rendered inestimable services in the years 
so critical for Prussia, from 1863 to 1870, now acting as the friend of 
Austria, a power which had taken no part in the conflict, but was now 
intent upon drawing chestnuts from the fire with the aid of the Iron 
Chancellor. The Treaty of BerHn was a humiliation for Russia and 
a striking success for Austria, her rival, which was now empowered to 
"occupy" Bosnia and Herzegovina. No wonder that the Russian 
Chancellor, Gortchakoff, pronounced the Congress of Berlin "the 
darkest episode in his career," and that Alexander II declared that 
"Bismarck had forgotten his promises of 1870." By favoring one of 
his allies Bismarck had alienated the other. In this fact lay the germ 
of the two great international combinations of the future, the Triple 
and Dual Alliances, factors of profound significance in the recent 
history of Europe. 

Of these the first in order of creation and in importance was the 
Triple Alliance. Reahzing that Russia was mortally offended at his con- 
duct, and that the friendly understanding with her was over, Bismarck 
turned for compensation to a closer union with Austria, and concluded 
a treaty with her October 7, 1879. This treaty provided ^^^^^_ 
that if either Germany or Austria were attacked by Russia German 
the two should be bound " to lend each other reciprocal aid ^^^^^ ^^ 
with the whole of their military power, and, subsequently, 
to conclude no peace except conjointly and in agreement"; that if 
either Germany or Austria should be attacked by another power — as, 
for instance, France — the ally should remain neutral, but that if this 
enemy should be aided by Russia, then Germany and Austria should 
act together with their full military force, and should make peace in 
common. Thus this Austro-German Treaty of 1879 established a de- 
fensive alliance aimed particularly against Russia, to a lesser degree 
against France. The treaty was secret and was not^ pubhshed untU 
1887 MeanwhHe, in 1882, Italy joined the alliance, irri- Entrance of 
tated at France because of her seizure the year before of Ifj-^^^ 
Tunis, a country which Italy herself had coveted as a seat 
for colonial expansion but which Bismarck had encouraged France to 



376 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

take, wishing to make one more enemy for France, and thus to force that 
enemy, Italy, into the alliance, highly unnatural in many ways, with 
Austria, her old-time enemy, and with Germany. Thus was formed 
the Triple Alliance. The text of that alliance has never been pubUshed, 
but its purpose and character may be derived from that of the Austro- 
German Alliance, which was now merely expanded to include another 
power. The alliance was made for a period of years, but was con- 
stantly renewed and remained in force until 191 5. It was a defensive 
alliance, designed to assure its territory to each of the contracting parties. 
Thus was created a combination of powers which dominated central 
Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, and which rested on a 
military force of over two million men. At its head stood Germany. 
Europe entered upon a period of German leadership in international 
affairs which was later to be challenged by the rise of a new alliance, 
that of Russia and France, which for various reasons, however, was slow 

in forming. 

THE REIGN OF WILLIAM II 

On the 9th of March, 1888, Emperor William I died at the age of 
ninety-one. He was succeeded by his son, Frederick III, in his fifty- 
Death of seventh year. The new Emperor was a man of modera- 
Wiiliam I ^jqj^^ of liberalism in politics, an admirer of the English 
constitution. It is supposed that, had he lived, the autocracy of the ruler 
would have given way to a genuine parliamentary system like that of 
England, and that an era of greater liberty would have been inaugurated. 
But he was already a dying man, ill Of cancer of the throat. His 
reign was one of physical agony patiently borne. Unable to use his 
voice, he could only indicate his wishes by writing or by signs. The 
reign was soon over, before the era of liberalism had time to dawn. 
Frederick was King and Emperor only from March 9 to June 15, 1888. 

He was succeeded by his son, William II, the present Emperor. 
The new ruler was twenty-nine years of age, a young man of very active 
Accession of mind, of fertile imagination, versatile, ambitious, self- 
William II confident, a man of unusual vigor. In his earliest utterances 
he showed his enthusiasm for the army and for religious orthodoxy. 
He held the doctrine of the divine origin of his power with mediaeval 
fervor, expressing it with frequency and in dramatic fashion. It was 
evident that a man of such a character would wish to govern, and not 
simply reign. He would not be willing long to efface himself behind the 



DISMISSAL OF BISMARCK 



377 



imposing figure of the great Chancellor. Bismarck had prophesied that 
the Emperor would be his own Chancellor, yet he did not have the wis- 
dom to resign when the old Emperor died, and to depart with dignity. 
He clung to power. From the beginning friction developed between the 

two. They thought differently, 
felt differently. The fundamental 
question was, who should rule in 
Germany? The struggle was for 
supremacy since there was no way 
in which two persons so self-willed 
and autocratic could divide 
power. As Bismarck stayed on 
when he saw that his presence was 
no longer desired, the Emperor, not 
willing to be overshadowed by so 
commanding and il- ^j^^ j.gg.g_ 

lustrious a minister, nation of 

r 11 1 J J u- Bismarck 

finally demanded his 

resignation in 1890. Thus in bit- 
terness and humiliation ended the 
political career of a man who, ac- 
cording to Bismarck himself, had 
"cut a figure in the history of Ger- 
many and Prussia." He lived sev- 
eral years longer, dying in 1898 at 
the age of eighty-three, leaving as 
his epitaph, "A faithful servant of 
Emperor William I." Thus van- 
ished from view a man who will 
rank in history as one of the few great founders of states. 

Since 1890 the personality of William II has been the decisive factor 
in the state. His Chancellors have been, in fact as well as in theory, 
his servants, carrying out the master's wish. There have been four: 
Caprivi, 1890-94; Hohenlohe, 1 894-1 900; von Bulow, 1900-09; and 
Bethmann-Hollweg, since July, 1909. 

The extreme poHtical tension was at first somewhat relieved by the 
removal of Bismarck from the scene, by this "dropping of the pilot," 
after thirty-eight years of continuous service. The early measures 




Dropping the Pilot 

Cartoon by Sir John Tenniel in Punch, 

March 29, i8go. 



378 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

under the new regime showed a Uberal tendency. The Anti-Sociahst 
laws, expirine; in 1800, were not renewed. This had been 

The Anti- r , r r • • l i -r- 

Socialist one of the causes 01 inction between the Emperor and the 

policy Chancellor. Bismarck wished them renewed, and their 

stringency increased. The Emperor wished to try milder 
methods, hoping to undermine the Socialists completely by further meas- 
ures of social and economic amelioration, to kill them with kindness. 
The repressive laws lapsing, the Socialists reorganized openly, and have 
conducted an aggressive campaign ever since. The Emperor, soon 
recognizing the futility of anodynes, became their bitter enemy, and 
began to denounce them vehemently, but no new legislation has been 
passed against them, although this has been several times attempted. 

The reign of William II has been notable for the remarkable expan- 
sion of industry and commerce, which has rendered Germany the re- 
doubtable rival of England and the United States. In 
expansion of colonial and foreign affairs an aggressive policy has been 
German followed. German colonies as yet have little importance, 

have entailed great expense, and have yielded only small 
returns. But the desire for a great colonial empire has become a settled 
policy of the Government, and has seized the popular imagination. 

Connected with the growing interest of Germany in commercial and 
colonial affairs has gone an increasing interest in the navy. Strong on 
Germany a land for fifty years, William II desires that Germany shall 
naval power ]^q strong on the sea, that she may act with decision in any 
part of the world, that her diplomacy, which is permeated with the idea 
that nothing great shall be done in world politics anywhere, in Europe, 
in Asia, in Africa, without her consent, may be supported by a for- 
midable navy. To make that fleet powerful has been a constant and 
a growing preoccupation of the present sovereign. 

In the political world the rise of the Social Democratic party is the 
most important phenomenon. It represents not merely a desire for a 
Continued revolution in the economic sphere, it also represents a 
growth of protest against the autocratic government of the present 
ruler, a demand for democratic institutions. While Ger- 
many has a Constitution and a Parliament, the monarch is vested with 
vast power. Parliament does not control the Government, as the min- 
isters are not responsible to it. There is freedom of speech in Parlia- 
ment, but practically during most of this reign it has not existed outside. 



THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY 379 

Hundreds of men have, during the past twenty years, been imprisoned 
for such criticisms of the Government as in other countries are the cur- 
rent coin of discussion. This is the crime of lese-majeste, which, as long 
as it exists, prevents a free political life. The growth of 
the Social Democratic party to some extent represents mere oemocrati 
liberalism, not adherence to the economic theory of the party 
Socialists. It is the great reform and opposition party of "h^i'ar^^t 
Germany. It has the largest popular vote of any party, 
3,250,000. Yet the Conservatives with less than 1,500,000 votes elected 
in 1907 eighty- three members to the Reichstag to the forty- three of the 
Socialists. The reason is this: The electoral districts have not been 
altered since they were originally laid out in 1869-71, though population 
has vastly shifted from country to city. The cities have grown rapidly 
since then, and it is in industrial centers .that the Socialists are strong- 
est. Berlin with a population in 187 1 of 600,000, had sLx members in 
the Reichstag. It still has only that number, though its population is 
over two million, and though it would be entitled to twenty members if 
equal electoral districts were granted. These the Socialists demand, a 
demand which, if granted, would make them the most powerful party 
in the Reichstag, as they are in the popular vote. For this very reason 
the Government has thus far refused the demand. The extreme op- 
ponents of the Social Democrats even urge that universal suffrage, 
guaranteed by the Constitution, be abolished, as the only way to crush 
the party. To this extreme the Government has not yet gone. 

In recent years several questions have been much discussed; the 
question of the electoral reform in Prussia; of the redis- -j-j^g demand 
tribution of seats, both in the Prussian Landtag and the for electoral 
Imperial Reichstag; and of ministerial responsibility. 

Prussia is the state that in practice rules the German Empire. This 
was what was intended by Bismarck when he drew up the Constitution 
of the Empire, it was precisely the object of his entire policy. The Con- 
stitution was based on the two chief articles of Bismarck's creed, the 
power of the monarch and the ascendancy of Prussia. This is the ac- 
cepted idea of the governing classes to-day. Prussia, as was p^.^^^.^ ,. ^^ 
said in 1914 by Prince von Billow, the most important state of sol- 
Chancellor of the Empire since Bismarck, "Prussia attained ^^^j^jg'^.f 
her greatness as a country of soldiers and officials, and as 
such she was able to accomplish the work of German union; to this day 



380 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

she is still, in all essentials, a state of soldiers and officials." The gov- 
erning classes are, in Prussia, which in turn governs Germany, the mon- 
arch, the aristocracy, and a bureaucracy of military and civil officials, 
responsible to the King alone. The determining factor in the state is the 
personality of the King. 

Neither Empire, nor Kingdom of Prussia, is governed by democratic 
institutions. The Kingdom lags far behind the Empire, and, so great 
is its power, impedes the development of liberty in the Empire. The 
electoral system in use for the Lower House of the Prussian legislature 
is that of the three classes previously described.'- According to this a 
man's voting power is determined by the amount of his taxes. Voters 
are divided into three groups, according to taxes paid, and each group 
has an equal representation in the assemblies or colleges that choose the 
deputies to the Lower House of the Prussian legislature. The first class 
contains from three to five per cent of the voters, the second from ten 
to twelve, whereas the third class contains perhaps eighty-five per cent, 
yet has only one-third of the members of the electoral colleges. The 
result is, as has been said, representation in the Chamber of Deputies 
only for the rich and well-to-do. The working classes are almost eii- 
tirely unrepresented. Because of this method of indirect elections, down 
to 1908 the Socialists were unable to elect a single member to the Prus- 
sian Chamber. With direct election they would have been entitled to 
about a hundred seats. 

Again, the electoral districts for the Prussian Chamber have not 

been changed since i860. There are therefore great inequalities 

between them. Thus in the province of East Prussia 
The demand . . , , . , , 

for parlia- the actual number of mhabitants to each deputy is 

mentary 63,000, while in Berhn it is 170,000. The demand is 

reform 

growing that many districts be partially or wholly dis- 
franchised or merged with others, and that other districts receive a 
larger representation. 

In the Empire a similar problem is yearly becoming more acute. 
In 1871 Germany was divided into 397 constituencies for the Reichstag. 
The number has remained the same ever since, nor has a single district 
gained or lost in representation. Yet during that time the population 
of the Empire has increased from about forty-one millions to over sixty- 
five millions, and there has been a great shifting in population from the 

1 See page 311. 



tgiladeEast from 16 OreemvicJi 



( ^VBoioholm. 




PRESENT PROBLEMS 



381 



country to the cities. One of the divisions of Berlin, with a population 
of 697,000, elects one representative, whereas the petty principality of 
Waldeck, with a population of 59,000, elects one. The 851,000 voters 
of Greater Berlin return eight members; the same number of voters in 

fifty of the smaller constituen- 
cies return forty-eight. A 
reform of these gross inequal- 
ities is widely demanded. 

Another subject which has 
recently received great em- 
phasis is that concerning min- 
isterial responsi- 
, .,.. „, . The demand 

blllty. The m- for ministe- 
discretions of rjal respon- 

Emperor William 
II have made this one of the 
burning questions. An inter- 
view with him, in which he 
spoke with great freedom of 
the strained relations between 
Germany and Great Britain, 
was published in the London 
Telegraph on October 28, 1908. 
At once was seen a phenome- 
non not witnessed in Germany 
since the founding of the Em- 
pire. There was a violent popular protest against the irresponsible 
actions of the Emperor, actions subject to no control, and yet easily 
capable of bringing about a war. Newspapers of all shades of party 
affiliation displayed a freedom of utterance and of censure unparalleled 
in Germany. All parties in the Reichstag expressed their emphatic dis- 
approval. The incident, however, was not sufficient to bring about the 
introduction of the system of the responsibility of the ministers for all 
the acts of the monarch, and the control of the ministry by the ma- 
jority of the Parliament — in short, the parliamentary system in its 
essential feature. 

• Prussia has been the strongest obstacle the democratic movement of 
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has encountered. Germany in 




William II 
From a photograph taken in 1914. 



382 THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

1914 was less liberal than in 1848. The most serious blow that the 

principle of representative government received during that 

resolute century was the one she received at the hands of Bismarck. 

opponent of ^g have expert testimony of the highest and most official 
democracy ^ o 

sort that the effects of that blow are not outlived. Prince 

von Biilow, writing in 1914, said: "Liberalism in spite of its change 

of attitude in national questions, has to this day not recovered from 

the catastrophic defeat which Prince Bismarck inflicted nearly half a 

century ago on the party of progress which still clung to the ideals and 

principles of 1848." 

The present situation is still further defined by the utterance of Pro- 
fessor Delbriick, successor to Treitschke in the chair of modern history 
in the University of Berlin, who wrote in a book published in 1914, 
"Anyone who has any familiarity with all our officers and generals knows 
that it would take another Sedan, infficted on us instead of by us, be- 
The army not ^^^^ ^^^^ would acquiesce in the control of the Army by 
controlled by the German Parliament." Here is a very clear indication 
ariamen ^£ where real power lies in Germany. One has only to 
recall the great chapters in English history which tell of the struggle for 
liberty to know that it has been obtained solely by the recognition of 
the supremacy of Parliament over royal prerogative, over military power. 

The German state is the most autocratic in Western Europe; it is 
also the most militaristic. Fundamental individual liberties, regarded 
as absolutely vital in England, France, America and many other states, 
have never been possessed by Germans, nor are they possessed now. 
Germany is rich, vigorous, powerful, instructed. It is not free. A mili- 
tary monarchy is the very opposite of a democratic state. Prince von 
Biilow says, in his recent book, "Imperial Germany," "Despite the 
German abundance of merits and the great qualities with which 

comments on the German nation is endowed, political talent has been 
ermany denied it." Any citizen of a free country knows that that 

talent grows only where an opportunity has been given it to grow. It 
need occasion no surprise that Mommsen, the historian of Rome, writ- 
ing in 1903, should say of his own country, "There are no longer free 
citizens." Instead there are industrious, energetic, educated, ambitious, 
and submissive subjects. 



REFERENCES 383 

The Government of the German Empire: Ogg, Governments of Europe, pp. 
210-228; Lowell, Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, Vol. I, pp. 240-285; 
Fife, The German Empire between Two Wars, pp. 101-138. 

The Kulturkampf: Headlam, Bismarck, pp. 394-404; Seignobos, The Political 
History of Europe Since 181 4, pp. 491-496; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern 
European History, Vol. II, pp. 178-185; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, pp. 145- 
152. 

Measxires against the Socialists: Dawson, German Socialism and Ferdinand 
Lassalle, pp. 247-278; Headlam, pp. 407^11; Fife, pp. 177-183. 

Bismarck and Social Reform: Ogg, Social Progress in Contemporary Europe, 
pp. 154-263; Dawson, Bismarck and State Socialism, pp. 23-36, 72-127; Robinson 
and Beard, Vol. II, pp. 185-192. 

Industrial Development of Germany: Ogg, Social Progress in Contemporary 
Europe, pp. 117-119, 123-124; ' Dawson, Evolution of Modern Germany; Fife, Chap. 
VIII. 

Bismarck's Foreign and Colonial Policies: Marriott and Robertson, The Evo- 
lution of Prussia, pp. 399-408, 416-423; Headlam, pp. 405-408, 423-427; Se>Tnour, 
The Diplomatic Backgrownd of the War, pp. 1-37. 

Dismissal and Death of Bismarck: Headlam, pp. 440-463; Robinson and Beard, 
Vol. II, pp. 200-203. 

Reign of William II: Marriott and Robertson, pp. 424-446; Gooch, History 
of Our Time (Home University Library) , pp. 82-97; Priest, Germany Since llJfi, pp. 
146-184; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, pp. 165-173; Seymour, Chaps. IV-V; 
Fife, passim; Tower, C, Germany of Today (Home University Library); Schmitt, 
England and Germany, Chaps. Ill, IV, VIII-XI. 



CHAPTER XXII 

FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

The Third Republic was proclaimed, as we have seen, by the Paris- 
ians on September 4, 1870, after the news of the disaster of Sedan had 
reached the capital. A Provisional Government of National 
lie %o- ^" ' Defense was immediately installed. This government gave 
claimed Sep- way in February, 1871 to a National Assembly of 750 
1870^'^ ' members elected by universal suffrage for a single pur- 
pose, to make peace with Germany. A majority of the 
members of this National Assembly, which met first at Bordeaux, 
The National were Monarchists. The reason was that the monarchical 
Assembly candidates favored the making of a peace, whereas many 

republican leaders, with Gambetta at their head, wished to continue 
the war. The mass of the peasants desiring peace therefore voted for 
the peace candidates. There is nothing to show that thereby they ex- 
pressed a wish for monarchy. The Assembly of Bordeaux made the 
peace, ceding Alsace and Lorraine, and assuming the enormous war 
indemnity. But peace did not return to France as a result of the Treaty 
of Frankfort. The "Terrible Year," as the French call it, of 1870- 
The " Terrible 7i, had more horrors in store. Civil war followed the war 
^®^''" with the Germans, shorter but exceeding it in ferocity^ a 

war between those in control of the city of Paris and the Govern- 
ment of France as represented by the Assembly of Bordeaux. That 
Assembly had chosen Thiers as "Chief of the Executive Power," 
pending "the nation's decision as to the definitive form of government." 
Thus the fundamental question was postponed. Thiers was chosen for 
no definite term; he was the servant of the Assembly to carry out its 
wishes, and might be dismissed by it at any moment. 

THE COMMUNE 

Between the Government and the people of Paris serious disagree- 
ments immediately arose, which led quickly to the war of the Com- 
mune. Paris had proclaimed the Republic. But the Republic was not 

384 



THE COMMUNE OF PARIS 



38s 



yet sanctioned by France, and existed only de facto. On the other hand, 
the National Assembly was controlled by Monarchists, and 

P3.ris 3.11(1 

it had postponed the determination of the permanent insti- the Assembly 
tutions of the country. Did not this simply mean that it ^"tuaiiy 
would abolish the Republic and proclaim the Monarchy, 
when it should judge the moment propitious? This fear, only too well 
justified, that the Assembly 
was hostile to the Republic, 
was the fundamental cause of 
the Commune. Paris lived in 
daily dread of this event. 
Paris was ardently Republi- 
can. For ten years under the 
Empire it had been returnmg 
Republicans to the Chamber 
of Deputies. These men did 
not propose to let a coup d'etat 
like that of Louis Napoleon in 
185 1 occur again. Various acts 
of the Assembly were well 
adapted to deepen and inten- 
sify the feeling of dread uncer- 
tainty. The Assembly showed 
its distrust of Paris by voting 
in March, 1871 that it would 
henceforth sit in Versailles. In 
other words, a small and sleepy 
town, and one associated with 
the history of monarchy, was 
to be the capital of France instead of the great city which had sus- 
tained the tremendous siege and by her self-sacrifice and versaiUes 
suffering had done her best to hold high the honor of the Ae^a.xe&^^^ 
land. Not only was Paris wounded in her pride by this act 
which showed such unmistakable suspicion of her but she suffered also 
in her material interests at a time of great financial distress. The Gov- 
ernment did nothing to relieve this distress but greatly accentuated it 
by several unwise measures. 

There was in Paris a considerable population having diverse revo- 




Thiers 
After the portrait by L. Bonnat, 1876. 



386 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

lutionary tendencies, anarchists, Jacobins, Socialists, — whose leaders 
Revolutionary worked with marked success among the restless, poverty- 
elements in stricken masses of the great city. Out of this unrest it was 
^^^ easy for an insurrection to grow. The insurrectionary spirit 

spread with great rapidity until it developed into a war between Paris and 
the Versailles Government. Attempts at solving the difficulties by con- 
ciliation having failed, the Government undertook to subdue the city. 
The second '^^^^ necessitated a regular siege of Paris, the second of 
siege of that unhappy city within a year. This time, however, the 

siege was conducted by Frenchmen, Germans, who con- 
trolled the forts to the north of Paris, looking on. It lasted nearly two 
months, from April 2 to May 2 1 , when the Versailles troops forced their 
entrance into the city. Then followed seven days ferocious fighting in 
the streets, the Communists more and more desperate and frenzied, the 
Versailles army more and more revengeful and sanguinary. This was 
The " Bloody the " Bloody Week," during which Paris suffered much more 
Week " |-]^^j^ gj^g ]^g^(j from the bombardment of the Germans — 

a week of fearful destruction of life and property. The horrors of 
incendiarism were added to those of slaughter. Finally the awful agony 
was brought to a close. The revenge taken by the Government was 
heavy. It punished right and left summarily. Many were shot on 
the spot without any form of trial. Arrests and trials went on for 
years. Thousands were sent to tropical penal colonies. Other thou- 
sands were sentenced to hard labor. The rage of this monarchical 
assembly was slow in subsiding. 

THE GOVERNMENT OF THIERS 

Having put down the insurrection of Paris and signed the hard 
treaty with Germany, France was at peace. The Republicans thought 
France at that the Assembly ought now to dissolve, arguing that it 
peace j^g^^j been elected to make peace, and nothing else. The 

Assembly decided however that it had full powers of legislation on all 
subjects, including the right to make the Constitution. The Assembly 
remained in power for nearly five years, refusing to dissolve. 

But before taking up the difficult work of making a Constitution it 
cooperated for two years with Thiers in the necessary work of reorgan- 
ization. The most imperative task was that of getting the Germans 
out of the country. Under the skillful leadership of Thiers the payment 



THIERS AND THE MONARCHISTS 387 

of the enormous war indemnity, five billion francs, was undertaken 
with energy and carried out with celerity. In September, ^j^^ ^^^^_ 
1873, the last installment was paid and the last German ation of the 
soldiers went home. The soil of France was freed nearly ^^''^^^'^ 
six months earlier than was provided by the treaty. For his great ser- 
vices in this initial work of reconstruction the National Assembly voted 
that Thiers had "deserved well of the country" and the people spon- 
taneously acclaimed him as "The Liberator of the Territory." 

The reconstruction of the army was also urgent and was undertaken 
in the same spirit of patriotism, entailing heavy personal sacrifices. A 

law was passed in 1872 instituting compulsory military ser- 

T-- r • • 1 • 1 Army reform 

Vice, t ive years 01 service m the active army were hence- 
forth to be required in most cases. The law really established in France 
the Prussian military system, so successful in cruslung all opponents. 
We now see the beginning of that oppressive militarism which has be- 
come the most characteristic feature of contemporary Europe. Other 
nations considered that they were forced to imitate Prussia in order to 
assure their own safety in the future. In the case of France the neces- 
sity was entirely obvious. 

In this work of reconstruction the Assembly and Thiers were able 
to work together on the whole harmoniously. Now that this was accom- 
plished the Monarchists of the Assembly resolved to abol- Thiers and 
ish the Republic and restore the Monarchy. They soon *® RepubUc 
found that they had in Thiers a man who would not abet them in their 
project. Thiers was originally a believer in constitutional monarchy, 
but he was not afraid of a repubUcan government, and during the years 
after 1870 he came to believe that a Republic was, for France, at the 
close of a turbulent century, the only possible form of government. 
"There is," he said, "only one throne, and there are three claimants for 
a seat on it." He discovered a happy formula in favor of the Republic, 
"It is the form of government which divides us least." And again, 
''Those parties who want a monarchy, do not want the The Monarch - 
same monarchy." By which phrases he accurately de- 1st parties 
scribed a curious situation. The Monarchists, while they constituted a 
majority of the Assembly, were divided into three parties, no one of 
which was in the majority. There were Legitimists, Orleanists, and 
Bonapartists. The Legitimists upheld the right of the grandson of 
Charles X, the Count of Chambord; the Orleanists, the right of the 



388 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

grandson of Louis Philippe, the Count of Paris; the Bonapartists, of 
Napoleon III, or his son. The Monarchist parties could unite to pre- 
vent a definite legal establishment of the Republic; they could not 
unite to establish the monarchy, as each wing wished a different monarch. 
Out of this division arose the only chance the Third Republic had to 
live. As the months went by, the Monarchists felt that Thiers was 
becoming constantly more of a Republican, which was true. If a 
monarchical restoration was to be attempted, therefore, Thiers must 
Resignation be gotten out of the way. Consequently, in May, 1873, 
of Thiers . ■ ^^q Assembly forced him to resign and immediately elected 
Marshal MacMahon president to prepare the way for the coming monarch. 

THE FRAMING OF THE CONSTITUTION 

Earnest attempts were made forthwith to bring about a restoration 
of the monarchy. This could be done by a fusion of the Legitimists and 
^jjg the Orleanists. Circumstances were particularly favorable 

Count of for the accomplishment of such a union. The Count of 

am or Chambord had no direct descendants. The inheritance 

would, therefore, upon his death, pass to the House of Orleans, repre- 
sented by the Count of Paris. The elder branch would in the course of 
nature be succeeded by the yom>ger. This fusion seemed accomplished 
when the Count of Paris visited the Count of Chambord, recognizing 
him as head of the family. A committee of nine members of the Assem- 
bly, representing the Monarchist parties, the Imperialists holding aloof, 
negotiated during the summer of 1873 with the "King" concerning the 
terms of restoration. The negotiations were successful on most points, 
and it seemed as if by the close of the year the existence of the Repub- 
lic would be terminated and Henry V would be reigning in France. 
The Republic was saved by the devotion of the Count of Chambord to 
a symbol. He stated that he would never renounce the ancient Bourbon 
banner. "Henry V could never abandon the white flag of Henry IV," 
he had already declared, and from that resolution he never swerved. 
The tricolor represented the Revolution. If he was to be King of France 
it must be with his principles and his flag; King of the Revolution he 
would never consent to be. The Orleanists, on the other hand, adhered 
to the tricolor, knowing its popularity with the people, knowing that no 
regime that repudiated the glorious symbol could long endure. Against 
tliis barrier the attempted fusion of the two branches of the Bourbon 



ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SEPTENNATE 389 

family was shattered. The immediate danger to the Republic was 
over. 

But the Monarchists did not renounce their hope of restoring the 
monarchy. The Count of Chambord might, perhaps, change his mind: 
if not, as he had no son, the Count of Paris would succeed him after his 
death as the lawful claimant to the throne; and the Count of Paris, 
defender of the tricolor, could then be proclaimed. The Monarchists 
therefore, planned merely to gain time. Marshal MacMahon had been 
chosen executive, as had Thiers, for no definite term. He was to serve 
during the pleasure of the Assembly itself. Believing that MacMahon 
would resign as soon as the King really appeared, they voted that his 
term should be for seven years, expecting that a period of that length 
would see a clearing up of the situation, either the change of mind or 

the death of the Count of Chambord. Thus was estab- t, * t,i- .. 

Establish- 

lished the Septennate, or seven year term, of the President, ment of the 
which still exists. The presidency was thus given a fixed S«P*«°°*te 
term by the Monarchists, as they supposed, in their own interests. If 
they could not restore the monarchy in 1873 they could at least con- 
trol the presidency for a considerable period, and thus prepare an easy 
transition to the new system at the opportune moment. 

But France showed unmistakably that she desired the establish- 
ment of a definitive system, that she wished to be through with these 
provisional arrangements, which only kept party feeling feverish and 
handicapped France in her foreign relations. France had as yet no 
constitution, and yet this Assembly, chosen to make peace, had asserted 
that it was also chosen to frame a constitution, and it was by this asser- 
tion that it iustified its continuance in power long after . 

, , , , Assembly 

peace was made. Yet month after month, and year after reluctant to 

year, went by and the constitution was not made, nor f^ame a con- 
•^ -^ stitution. 

even seriously discussed. If the Assembly could not, or 

would not, make a constitution, it should relinquish its power and let 
the people elect a body that would. But this it steadily refused to do. 

This inability of the Monarchists to act owing to their own internal 
divisions was of advantage to only one party, the Republican. More 
and more people who had hitherto been Monarchists, now finally con- 
vinced that a restoration of the monarchy was impracticable, joined 
the Republican party and thus it came about finally in 1875 that the 
Assembly decided to make the constitution. It did not, as previous 



390 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

assemblies had done, draw up a single document, defining the organiza- 
tion and narrating the rights of the citizens. It passed three separate 
The ^^^^ which taken together were to serve as a constitution. 

Constitution By these laws a legislature wlas established consisting of 
^^^ two houses, a Senate, consisting of 300 members, at least 

forty years of age and chosen for nine years, and a Chamber of Depu- 
ties, to be elected by universal suffrage for a term of four years. These 
two houses meeting 1,ogether as a National Assembly elect the President 
of the Republic. There is no vice-president, no succession provided by 
law. In case of a vacancy in the presidency the National Assembly 
meets immediately, generally within forty-eight hours, and elects a new 
The President. The President has the right to initiate legis- 

President lation, as have the members of the two houses, the duty 
to promulgate all laws and to superintend their execution, the pardon- 
ing power, the direction of the army and navy, and the appointment to 
all civil and military positions. He may, with the consent of the Senate, 
dissolve the Chamber of Deputies before the expiration of its legal term 
and order a new election. But these powers are merely nominal, for the 
reason that every act of the President must be countersigned by a min- 
ister, who thereby becomes responsible for the act, the President being 
irresponsible, except in the case of high treason. 

For the fundamental feature of the Third Republic, differentiating 
it greatly from two preceding republics of France and from the republic 
of the United States, is its adoption of the parliamentary system, as 
The worked out in England. The President's position resembles 

mmistry ^j^g^^ Qf ^^ constitutional monarch.- All his acts must be 

countersigned by his ministers who become thereby responsible for them. 
The ministers in turn are responsible to the chambers, particularly to 
the Chamber of Deputies. The Chamber thus controls the executive, 
makes and unmakes ministries as it chooses. The legislature controls 
the executive. The legislative and executive branches are thus fused as- 
in England, not sharply separated as in the United States. The essen- 
tial feature therefore of this republic is that it has adopted the govern- 
mental machinery first elaborated in a monarchy. The Constitution of 
France a -^^75 ^^^ ^ compromise between opposing forces, neither of 

parliamen- which could win an unalloyed victory. The monarchical 
ary repu ic assembly that established the parliamentary republic in 
1875 thought that it had introduced sufficient monarchical elements into 



VICTORY OF THE REPUBLICANS 



391 



it to curb the aggressiveness of democracy and to facilitate a restora- 
tion of the monarchy at some convenient season. The Senate, it thought, 
would be a monarchical stronghold and the President and Senate could 
probably keep the Chamber of Deputies in check by their power of dis- 
solving it. 

It was some years before the Republicans secured unmistakable 

control of the Republic in all its branches. 
In the first elections under the new consti- 
tution, which were held at the beginning 
of 1876, the Monarchists se- 
cured a slight majority in the J?;,£^//^ 
Senate, the Republicans a 
large majority in the Chamber of Deputies. 
It was generally supposed that the Presi- 
dent, MacMahon, was a Monarchist in his 
sympathies. This was shown to be the 
case when MacMahon in May, 1877 dis- 
missed the Simon ministry, which was Re- 
publican and which had the support of the 
Chamber, and appointed a new ministry, 
composed largely of Monarchists under 
the Duke of Broglie. Thereupon, the Sen- 
ate, representing the same viqws, consented to the dissolution of the 
Chamber of Deputies, and new elections were ordered. 

The Monarchists carried on a vigorous campaign against the Repub- 
licans. They were powerfully supported by the clerical party, which, 
ever since 1871, had been extremely active. The Repub- ^j^^ Repub- 
licans resented this intrusion of the Catholic party, and lie and the 
their opinion of it had been vividly expressed some time 
before by Gambetta in the phrase — " Clericalism, that is our 
enemy," meaning that the Roman Catholic Church was the most dan- 
gerous opponent of the Republic. The struggle was embittered. The 
Broglie ministry used every effort to influence the votes against Gam- 
betta and the Republicans. The clergy took an active part in the 
campaign, supporting the Broglie candidates and preaching against the 
Republicans, conduct which in the end was to cost them dear. 

The Republicans were, however, overwhelmingly victorious. In the 
following year, 1878, they also gained control of the Senate and in 1879 




Marshal MacMahon 
From a photograph. 



392 



FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 



they brought about the resignation of MacMahon. The National 
Assembly immediately met and elected Jules Grevy president, a man 
^ . whose devotion to Republican principles had been known 

chosen to France for thirty years. For the first time since 1871 

President ^^^q RepubHcans controlled the Chamber of Deputies, the 
Senate, and the Presidency. Since that time the Republic has been 

entirely in the hands of the 
Republicans. 

The Republi'cans, now 
completely victorious, sought 
by constructive legislation to 
consolidate the Republic. 
Two personalities stand out 
with particular prominence : 
Gambetta, as president of the 
Chamber of Deputies, and 
Jules Ferry, as member of 
several ministries and as twice 
prime minister. The legisla- 
tion enacted during this 
period aimed to clinch the vic- 
tory over the Monarchists 
. and Clericals by making the 
institutions of France thor- 
oughly republican and secular. 
The seat of government was 
transferred from Versailles, 
where it had been since 1871, 
to Paris (1880), and July 14, the day of the storming of the Bastille, 
symbol of the triumph of the people over the monarchy, was declared 
the national holiday, and was celebrated for the first time in 1880 amid 
great enthusiasm. The right of citizens freely to hold public meetings 
as they might wish, and without any preliminary permission of the 
Government, was secured, as was also a practically unlimited freedom of 
the press (1881). Workingmen were permitted, for the first time, freely 
to form trades unions (1884). 

The Republicans were particularly solicitous about education. As 
universal suffrage was the basis of the state, it was considered funda- 




JuLES Grevy 

From an engraving by Lalauze, after the pamting 

by L. Bonnat. 



COLONIAL EXPANSION 



393 



mental that the voters should be intelligent. Education was regarded 
as the strongest bulwark of the Republic. Several laws 
were passed, concerning all grades of education, but the nation^ °^ * 
most important were those concerning primary schools, system of 
A law of 1 88 1 made primary education gratuitous; one of ®*^"'^**'°'^ 
1882 made it compulsory between the ages of six and thirteen, and 
later laws made it entirely secular. 
No religious instruction is given in 
these schools. All teachers are 
appointed from the laity. This 
system of popular education is 
one of the great creative achieve- 
ments of the Republic, and one 
of the most fruitful. 

Under the masterful influence 
of Jules Ferry, prime minister in 
1 88 1, and again from 1883 to 1885, 
the Republic embarked upon an 
aggressive colonial policy. She 
established a protectorate over 
Tunis; sent expeditions to Tonkin, 
to Madagascar; founded the 
French Congo. This policy 
aroused bitter criticism from the beginning, and entailed large expen- 
ditures, but Ferry, regardless of growing opposition, forced Colonial 
it through, in the end to his own undoing. His motives policy 
in throwing France into these ventures were various. One reason was 
economic. France was feeling the rivalry of Germany and Italy, and 
Ferry believed that she must gain new markets as compensation for 
those she was gradually losing. Again, France would gain in prestige 
abroad, and in her own feeling of contentment, if she turned her atten- 
tion to empire-building and ceased to think morbidly of her losses in 
the German war. Her outlook would be broader. Moreover, she could 
not afford to be passive when other nations about her were reaching out 
for Africa and Asia. The era of imperialism had begun. France must 
participate in the movement or be left hopelessly behind in the 
rivalry of nations. Under Ferry's resolute leadership the policy of ex- 
pansion was carried out, and the colonial possessions of France were 




Jules Ferry. 



394 



FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 



greatly increased, but owing to one or two slight reverses, greatly mag- 
nified by his enemies, Ferry himself became unpopular and his notable 
ministry was overthrown (1885). 

During the next few years the political situation was troubled and 
uncertain. There was no com- 
manding personality in politics to 
give elevation and sweep to men's 
Death of ideas. Gambetta 

Gambetta had died in 1882 at 
the age of forty-four and Ferry, 
the empire-builder, was most un- 
justly the victim of unpopularity 
from which he never recovered. 
Ministries succeeded each other 
rapidly. Politics seemed a game 
of ofl&ce seeking, pettily personal, 
not an arena in which men of large 
ideas could live and act. The 
educational and anti-clerical and 
colonial policies all aroused ene- 
mies. President Grevy even was 
forced to resign because of a 
scandal that did not compromise 
him personally but did smirch 
Carnot ^^^ son-in-law. Car- 

chosen not, a moderate Re- 

presi en publican, was chosen to succeed him (December 3, 1887). 

This state of discontent and disillusionment created a real crisis for 
the Republic, as it encouraged its enemies to renewed activity. These 
elements now found a leader or a tool in General Bou- 
langer, a dashing figure on horseback and an attractive 
speaker, who sought to use the popular discontent for his 
own advancement. Made Minister of War in 1886, he showed much 
General activity, seeking the favor of the soldiers by improving the 

Boulanger conditions of life in the barracks, and by advocating the 

reduction of the required term of service. He controlled several news- 
papers, which began to insinuate that under his leadership France could 
take her revenge upon Germany by a successful war upon that country. 




Sadi-Carnot 
From a photograph by London Stereoscopic Co. 



Discontent 
with the 
Republic 



COLLAPSE OF BOULANGISM 395 

He posed as the rescuer of the Repubhc, demanding a total revision of 
the Constitution. His programme, as announced, was vague, but prob- 
ably aimed at the diminution of the importance of Parliament, the 
conferring of great powers upon the President, and his election directly 
by the people, which he hoped would be favorable to himself. For three 
years his personality was a storm center. Discontented people of the 
most varied shades flocked to his support — Monarchists, Imperiahsts, 
Clericals, hoping to use him to overturn the Republic. These parties 
contributed money to the support of his campaign, which was brilliantly 
managed with the view to focusing popular attention upon him. To 
show the popular enthusiasm Boulanger now became a candidate for 
Parliament in many districts where vacancies occurred. In five months 
(1888) he was elected deputy six times. A seventh election in Paris 
itself, in January, 1889, resulted in a brilliant triumph. He was elected 
by over 80,000 majority. Would he dare take the final step and attempt 
to seize power, as two Bonapartes had done before him? He did not 
have the requisite audacity to try. In the face of this imminent danger 
the Republicans ceased their dissensions and stood together. They 
assumed the offensive. The ministry summoned Boulanger to appear 
before the Senate, sitting as a High Court of Justice, to ^^^ 
meet the charge of conspiring against the safety of the Republic 

state. His boldness vanished. He fled from the country weathers the 

crisis 
to Belgium. He was condemned by the court m his ab- 
sence. His party feU to pieces, its leader proving so Httle valorous. Two 
years later he committed suicide. The Republic had weathered a seri- 
ous crisis. It came out of it stronger rather than weaker. Its opponents 
were discredited. 

In 1 891 a very important diplomatic achievement still further 
strengthened the Republic. An alliance was made with Russia which 
ended the long period of isolation in which France had been The Dual 
made to feel her powerlessness during the twenty years AiUance 
since the Franco-Prussian war. This Dual AUiance henceforth served 
as a counterweight to the Triple AUiance of Germany, Austria, and 
Italy, and satisfied the French people, as weU as increased their sense 
of safety and their confidence in the future. 

In 1894 President Carnot was assassinated. Casimir-Perier was 
chosen to succeed him but resigned after six months. Felix Faure was 
elected in his place, who however died in office in 1899, having seen the 



30 



FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 



strengthening of the alliance with Russia and the beginning of the Drey- 
fus case, a scandal which eclipsed that of Boulanger and created a new 




Casimir Perier 
From a photograph by Ogerau, Paris. 



Felix Faure 
From a photograph by Berthaud, Paris. 



crisis for the Republic. 
Emile Loubet. 



Faure was succeeded in the presidency by 



THE DREYFUS CASE 



In October, 1894, Dreyfus, a Jewish ofhcer in the army, was arrested 
amid circumstances of unusual secrecy, was brought before a court - 
The Dreyfus martial and was condemned as guilty of treason, of trans- 
*^^^® mitting important documents to a foreign power, presumably 

Germany. The trial was secret and the condemnation rested on merely 
circumstantial evidence, involving the identity of handwriting, declared 
to be his. He was condemned to expulsion from the army 
and to imprisonment for life. In January, 1895 he was pub- 
licly degraded in a most dramatic manner in the court- 
yard of the Military School, before a large detachment of 
the army. His stripes were torn from his uniform, his sword was 



Dreyfus 
degraded 
and im- 
prisoned 



THE DREYFUS CASE 397 

roken. Throughout this agonizing scene he was defiant, asserted his 
inocence, and shouted "Vive la France!" He was then deported to 
small, barren, and unhealthy island off French Guiana, in South 
merica, appropriately called Devil's Island, and was there kept in soli- 
iry confinement. A life imprisonment under such conditions would 
robably not be long, though it would certainly be horrible. 

The friends of Dreyfus protested that a monstrous wrong had been 
one but their protests passed unheeded. But in 1896 Colonel Picquart, 
ead of the detective bureau of the General Staff, discovered that the 
icriminating document was not in the handwriting of Dreyfus but 
t a certain Major Esterhazy, who was shortly shown to be one of the 
lost abandoned characters in the army. Picquart's superior ofiicers 
ere not grateful for his efforts, fearing apparently that the honor of 
le army would be smirched if the verdict of the court-martial was 
lown to be wrong. They therefore removed him from his position 
ad appointed Colonel Henry in his place. 

In January, 1898 Emile Zola, the well-known novelist, published a 
tter of great boldness and brilliancy, in which he made most scathing 
larges against the judges of the court-martial, not only 
)r injustice but for dishonesty. Many men of reputation temps to 
L literature and scholarship joined in the discussion, on the reopen the 
de of Dreyfus. Zola hoped to force a reopening of the 
hole question. Instead he was himself condemned by a court to im- 
risonment and fine. Shortly Henry committed suicide, having been 
larged with forging one of the important documents in the case. His 
licide was considered a confession of guilt. So greatly disturbed were 
le people by these scandalous events that pubhc opinion forced the 
opening of the whole case. Dreyfus, prematurely old as a result of 
arful physical and mental suffering, was brought from Devil's Island 
id given a new trial before a court-martial at Rennes in August, 1899. 

This new trial was conducted in the midst of the most excited state 
■ the pubhc mind in France, and of intense interest abroad. Party 
issions "were inflamed as they had not been in France second trial 
nee the Commune. The supporters of Dreyfus were °^ °'«y^"s 
jnounced frantically as slanderers of the honor of the army, the very 
ulwark of the safety of the country, as traitors to France. 

At the Rennes tribunal, Dreyfus encountered the violent hostility 
t the high army ofi&cers, who had been his accusers five years before. 



398 



FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 



These men were desperately resolved that he should again be found 
guilty. The trial was of an extraordinary character. It was the evi- 
dent purpose of the judges not to allow the matter to be thoroughly 
probed. Testimony, which in England or America would have been 
considered absolutely vital, was barred out. The universal opinion out- 
side France was, as was stated in the London Times, ''that the whole 
case against Captain Dreyfus, as set forth by the heads of the French 
army, in plain combination against him, was foul with forgeries, lies, 
contradictions, and puerilities, and that nothing to justify his condem- 
nation had been shown." 

Nevertheless, the court, by a vote of five to two, declared him guilty, 
"with extenuating circumstances," an amazing verdict. It is not gen- 
erally held that treason to one's country can plead extenu- 
Dreyfus . . _, , f i • 

again atmg Circumstances. I he court condemned him to ten 

declared years' imprison- 

ment, irom which 
the years spent at Devil's Island 
might be deducted. Thus the 
"honor" of the army had been 
maintained. 

President Loubet immediately 
pardoned Dreyfus, and he was 
released, broken in health. This 
solution was satisfactory to 
Dreyfus neither side. The 

pardoned anti-D rey f usites 

vented their rage on Loubet. 
On the other hand, Dreyfus de- 
manded exoneration, a recog- 
nition of his innocence, not 
pardon. 

But the Government was re- 
solved that this discussion, 
which had so frightfully torn 
French society, should cease. 
Against the opposition of the Dreyfusites, it passed, in 1900, an am- 
nesty for all those implicated in the notorious case, which meant that 
no legal actions could be brought against any of the participants on 




Emile Loubet 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DREYFUS CASE 



399 



either side. The friends of Dreyfus, Zola, and Picquart protested vig- 
orously against the erection of a barrier against their vindication. The 
bill, nevertheless, passed. 

Six years later, however, the Dreyfus party attained its vindication. 
The revision of the whole case was submitted to the Court of Cassation. 
On July 12, 1906, that body quashed the verdict of the Dreyfus 
Rennes court-martial. It declared that the charges which vindicated 
had been brought against Dreyfus had no foundation, and that the 
Rennes court-martial had been guUty of gross injustice in refusing to 
hear testimony that would have established the innocence of the accused. 
The case was not to be submitted to another military tribunal but was 
closed. 

The Government now restored Captain Dreyfus to his rank in the 
army, or rather, gave him the rank of major, allowing him to count to 
that end the whole time in which he had been unjustly deprived of his 
standing. On July 21, 1906, he was invested with a decoration of the 
Legion of Honor in the very courtyard of the MiUtary School where, 

eleven years before, he had been 
so dramatically degraded. Colonel 
Picquart was promoted brigadier- 
general, and shortly became Min- 
ister of War. Zola had died in 
1903, but in 1908 his body was 
transferred to the Pantheon, as 
symbolizing a kind of civic canon- 
ization. Thus ended the "Affair." 
The Dreyfus case, originally 
simply involving the fate of an al- 
leged traitor, had soon acquired a 
far greater signifi- significance 
cance. Party and ^^ ^^^ "^^ 
personal ambitions and interests 
sought to use it for purposes of 
their own and thus the question 
of legal right and wrong was woe- 
fully distorted and obscured. Those who hated the Jews used it to in- 
flame people against that race, as Dreyfus was a Jew. The Clericals 
joined them. Monarchists seized the occasion to declare that the Re- 




Alfred Dreyfus 



400 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

public was an egregious failure, breeding treason, and ought to be 
abolished. On the other hand there rallied to the defense of Dreyfus 
those who believed in his innocence, those who denounced the hatred of 
a race as a relic of barbarism, those who believed that the military should 
be subordinate to the civil authority and should not regard itself as 
above the law as these army officers were doing, those who believed 
that the whole episode was merely a hidden and dangerous attack upon 
the Republic, and all who believed that the clergy should keep out of 
politics. 

The chief result of this memorable struggle in the domain of politics 
was to unite more closely Republicans of every shade in a common pro- 
gramme, to make them resolve to reduce the political importance 
of the army and of the Church. The former was easUy done, by re- 
movals of Monarchist officers. The attempt to solve the 
of a strong latter much more subtle and elusive problem led to the 

republican j^g^t great Struggle in the recent history of France, 
coalition , i • i i /^i i 

the struggle with the Church. 

THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 

This new controversy assumed prominence under the premiership 
of Waldeck-Rousseau, a leader of the Parisian bar, a former follower of 
Question of Gambetta. In October, 1900, he made a speech at Toulouse 
Church and which resoundcd throughout France. The real peril con- 
^ ® fronting the country, he said, arose from the growing power 

of religious orders — orders of monks and nuns — and from the char- 
Growth of acter of the teaching given by them in the religious schools 
religious they were conducting. He pointed out that here was a 

^^^ power within the State which was a rival of the State and 

fundamentally hostile to the State. These orders, moreover, although 
not authorized under the laws of France, were growing rapidly in wealth 
and numbers. Between 1877 and 1900 the number of nuns had increased 
from 14,000 to 75,000, in orders not authorized. The monks numbered 
about 190,000. The property of these orders, held in mortmain, esti- 
mated at about ^0,000,000 francs in the middle of the century,- had risen 
to 700,000,000 in 1880, and was more than a billion francs in 1900. 
Here was a vast amount of wealth, withdrawn from ordinary processes 
of business, an economic danger of the first importance. But the most 
serious feature was the activity of these orders in teaching and preaching. 



THE LAW OF ASSOCIATIONS 401 

)r that teaching was declared to be hostile to the RepubHc and to the 
rinciples of liberty and equaUty on which the Republicans of France 
ave insisted ever since the French Revolution. In other words these 
lurch schools were doing their best to make their pupils hostile to 
le Republic and to republican ideals. There was a danger to the 
tate which Parliament must face. To preserve the Republic, defensive 
leasures must be taken. Holding this opinion, the Waldeck-Rousseau 
linistry secured the passage, July i, 1901, of the Law of The Law of 
ssociations, which provided, among other things, that no Associations 
iligious orders should exist in France without definite authorization in 
ich case from Parliament. It was the belief of the authors of this bill 
lat the Roman Catholic Church was the enemy of the Republic, that 
. was using its every agency against the Republic, that it had latterly 
ipported the anti-Dreyfus party in its attempt to discredit the inslitu- 
ons of France, as it had done formerly under MacMahon. Gambetta 
ad, at that time, declared that the enemy was the clerical party. 
Clericalism," said Combes, who succeeded Waldeck-Rousseau in 1902, 
is, in fact, to be found at the bottom of every agitation and every 
itrigue from which Republican France has suffered during the last 
lirty-five years." 

Animated with this feeling, Combes enforced the Associations Law 
ith rigor in 1902 and 1903. Many orders refused to ask for authorization 
om Parliament; many which asked were refused. Tens of thousands 
t monks and nuns were forced to leave their institutions, which were 
osed. By a law of 1904 it was provided that all teaching by religious 
rders, even by those authorized, should cease within ten 
ears. The State was to have a monopoly of the education ordSs^lor- 
i the young, in the interest of the ideals of liberalism it bidden to 
^presented. Combes, upon whom fell the execution of this teaching 
,w, suppressed about five hundred teaching, preaching, 
ad commercial orders. This policy was vehemently denounced by 
athoHcs as persecution, as an infringement upon liberty, the liberty 
) teach, the liberty of parents to have their children ^ducated m de- 
ominational schools if they preferred. 

This, as events were to prove, was only preliminary to a far greater 
;ligious struggle which ended in the complete separation of Church 

nd State. , ^ , . 

The relations of the Roman Catholic Church and the State down to 



402 



FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 



1905 were determined by the Concordat, concluded between Napoleon 
„ I and Pius VII in 1801 and promulgated in the following 

cordat of year. The system then established remained undisturbed 

^^°^ throughout the nineteenth century, under the various re- 

gimes, but after the advent of the Third Republic there was ceaseless 
and increasing friction between the Church and the State. The op- 
position of the Republicans was augmented by the activity of the 

clergy in the Dreyfus affair. Consequently a law was- 
abrogation finally passed, December 9, 1905, which abrogated the Con- 
of the Con- cordat. The State was henceforth not to pay the salaries 

of the clergy; on the other hand, it relinquished all rights 
over their appointment. It undertook to pay pensions to clergy- 




Interior of the Chamber of Deputies 

men who had served many years, and were already well advanced in 
age; also to pay certain amounts to those who had been in the priest- 
Associations hood for a few years only. In regard to the property, 
of Worship which since 1789 had been declared to be owned by the 
nation, the cathedrals, churches, chapels, it was provided that these 



SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 403 

should still be at the free disposal of the Roman Catholic Church but 
that they should be held and managed by so-called "Associations of 
Worship," which were to vary in size according to the population of 
the community. 

This law was condemned unreservedly by the Pope, Pius X, who 
declared that the fundamental principle of separation of Church and 
State is "an absolutely false thesis, a very pernicious error," Opposition of 
and who denounced the Associations of Worship as giving ^'^^ ^ 
the administrative control, not "to the divinely instituted hierarchy, 
but to an association of laymen." The Pope's decision was final and 
conclusive for all Catholics as it was based on fundamentals and flatly 
rejected the law of 1905. 

Parliament therefore passed a new law, early in 1907, supplementary 
to the law of 1905. By it most of the privileges guaranteed the Roman 
Catholic Church by the law of 1905 were abrogated. The Law of jan- 
critical point in the new law was the method of keeping ""y 2, 1907 
the churches open for religious exercises and so avoiding all the appear- 
ance of persecution and all the scandal and uproar that would certainly 
result if the churches of France were closed. It was. provided that 
their use should be gratuitous and should be regulated by contracts be- 
tween the priests and the prefects or mayors. These contracts would 
safeguard the civil ownership of the buildings, but worship would go 
on in them as before. This system is at present in force. 

The result of this series of events and measures is that Church and 
State are now definitely separated. The people have apparently ap- 
proved in recent elections the policy followed by their separation 
Government. Bishops and priests no longer receive sal- of Church 
aries from the State. On the other hand they have liberties 
which they did not enjoy under the Concordat, such as rights of assem- 
bly and freedom from government participation in appointments. The 
faithful must henceforth support their priests and bear the expenses of 
the Church by private contributions. The church buildings, however, 
have been left to their use by the irrational but practical device just 
described. 

ACQUISITION OF COLONIES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had possessed 
an extensive colonial empire. This she had lost to England as a result 



404 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

of the wars of the reign of Louis XV, the Revolution, and the Na- 
The French poleonic period, and in 1815 her possessions had shrunk 
colonial to a few small points, Guadaloupe and Martinique in the 

empire West Indies, St. Pierre and Miquelon, off Newfoundland, five 

towns on the coasts of India, of which Pondicherry was the best known, 
Bourbon, now called Reunion, an island in the Indian Ocean, Guiana 
in South America, which had few inhabitants, and Senegal in Africa, 
These were simply melancholy souvenirs of her once proud past, rags 
and tatters of a once imposing empire. 

In the nineteenth century she was destined to begin again, and to 
create an empire of vast geographical extent, only second in importance 
to that of Great Britain, though vastly inferior to that. The interest in 
conquests revived but slowly after 181 5. France had conquered so much 
in Europe from 1792 to 181 2 only to lose it as she had lost her colonies, 
that conquest in any form seemed but a futile and costly display of mis- 
directed enterprise. Nevertheless, in time the process began anew, and 
each of the various regimes which have succeeded one another since 
18 1 5 has contributed to the building of the new empire. 

The beginning was made in Algeria, on the northern coast of Africa, 

directly opposite France, and reached now in less than twenty-four 

hours from Marseilles. Down to the opening of the nine- 
Algeria i a j^ o 

teenth century Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, nominally 

parts of the Turkish Empire, were in reality independent and consti- 
tuted the Barbary States, whose main business was piracy. But Europe 
was no longer disposed to see her wealth seized and her citizens en- 
slaved until she paid their ransom. In 1816 an English fleet bom- 
barded Algiers, released no less than 3,000 Christian captives, and 
destroyed piracy. 

The French conquest of Algeria grew out of a gross insult admin- 
istered by the Dey to a French consul in 1830. France replied by 
sending a fleet to seize the capital, Algiers. She did not at that time 
intend the conquest of the whole country, but merely the punishment 
of an insolent Dey, but attacks being made upon her from time to time 
which she felt she miist crush, she was led on, step by step, until she 
had everywhere established her power. All through the reign of Louis 
PhiHppe this process was going on. Its chief feature was an inter- 
mittent struggle of fourteen years with a native leader, Abd-el-Kader, 
who proclaimed and fought a Holy War against the intruder. In the 



COLONIAL EXPANSION 405 

end (1847) he was forced to surrender, and. France had secured an 
important territory. 

Under Napoleon III, the beginning of conquest in another part of 
Africa was made. France had possessed, since the time of Louis XIII 

and RicheHeu, one or two miserable ports on the western ^.,. 

o T • 1 • Other 

coast, bt. Louis the most important. Under Napoleon III, African 

the annexation of the Senegal vaUey was largely carried '^^'^i^^sts 
through by the efforts of the governor, Faidherbe, who later distin- 
guished himself in the Franco-German war. Under Napoleon III also, 
a beginning was made in another part of the world, in Asia. The perse- 
cution of Christian natives, and the murder of certain French mission- 
aries gave Napoleon the pretext to attack the king of Annam, whose 
kingdom was in the peninsula that juts out from southeastern Asia. 
After eight years of intermittent fighting France acquired Cochin- 
from the king the whole of Cochin-China (1858-67), and ^^^* 
also estabHshed a protectorate over the Kingdom of Cambodia, directly 
north. 

Thus, by 1870, France had staked out an empire of about 700,000 
square kilometers, containing a population of about six million. 

Under the present Republic the work of expansion and consolidation 

has been carried much further than under all of the pre- 

,. , . mi 1 1 • • • Expansion 

ceding regimes. There have been extensive annexations m under the 

northern Africa, western Africa, the Indian Ocean, and in V^"^\ ,. 

Republic 

Indo-China. 

In northern Africa, Tunis has passed under the control of France. 
This was one of the Barbary States, and was nominally a part of the 
Turkish Empire, with a Bey as sovereign. After establishing herself 
in Algeria, France desired to extend her influence eastward, over this 
neighboring state. But Italy, now united, began about 1870 to enter- 
tain a similar ambition. France, therefore, under the ministry of Jules 
Ferry, an ardent behever in colonial expansion, sent troops into Tunis 
in 1881, which forced the Bey to accept a French protectorate over his 
state. The French have not annexed Tunis formally, but they control 
it absolutely through a Resident at the court of the Bey, whose advice 
the latter is practically obliged to follow. 

In western Africa, France has made extensive annexations in the 
Senegal, Guinea, Dahomey, the Ivory Coast, and the region of the 
Niger, and north of the Congo. By occupying the oases in the Sahara 



4o6 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

she has estabhshed her claims to that vast but hitherto unproductive 
Western area. This process has covered many years of the present 

Africa Repubhc. The result is the existence of French authority 

over most of northwest Africa, from Algeria on the Mediterranean, to 
the Congo river. This region south of Algeria is called the French Sou- 
dan, and comprises an area seven or eight times as large as France, with 
a population of some fourteen millions, mainly blacks. There is some 
discussion of a Trans-Saharan railroad to bind these African possessions 
more closely together. 

In Asia, the Republic has imposed her protectorate over the King- 
dom of Annam (1883) and has annexed Tonkin, taken from China after 
considerable fighting (1885). In the Indian Ocean, she has conquered 
Madagascar, an island larger than France herself, with a population 

,, , of two and a half million. A protectorate was imposed 

Madagascar . "^ ■ '■ 

upon that country m 1895, after ten years of disturbance, 

but after quelling a rebellion that broke out the following year, the 

protectorate was abolished, and the island was made a French 

colony. 

Thus at the opening of the twentieth century, the colonial empire 
of France is eleven times larger than France itself, has an area of six 
million square kilometers, a population of about fifty millions, and a 
rapidly growing commerce. Most of this empire is located in the trop- 
ics and is ill-adapted to the settlement of Europeans. Algeria and Tunis, 
however, offer conditions favorable for such settlements. They con- 
stitute the most valuable French possessions. Algeria is not consid- 
ered a colony but an integral part of France. It is divided into three 
departments, each one of which sends one senator and two deputies to 
the chambers of the French Parliament. 

On March 30, 191 2, France established a protectorate over Morocco. 
For several years the status of that country had been one of the conten- 
tious problems of international politics. France had de- 
Morocco • J • r • • 

sired to gam control of it in order to round out her empire 

in northwestern Africa. In 1904 she had made an agreement with Eng- 
land whereby a far-reaching diplomatic revolution in Europe was in- 
augurated. This was largely the work of Theophile Delcasse, Minister 
of Foreign Affairs for seven years, from 1898 to 1905, one of the ablest 
statesmen the Third Republic has produced. Delcasse believed that 
France would be able to follow a more independent and self-respecting 



ACQUISITION OF MOROCCO 



407 



foreign policy, one freer from German domination and intimidation, 
if her relations with Italy and England, severely strained for many 
years, largely owing to colonial rivalries and jealousies, could be made 
cordial and friendly. This he was able to accomplish by arranging a 

treaty of commerce favorable to 
Italy and by promising Italy a free 
hand in Tripoli and receiving from 
her the assurance that she would 
do nothing to hamper French 
policy in Morocco, a country of 
special significance to France be- 
cause of her possession of Algeria. 
More important was the recon- 
ciliation with England. The re- 
lations of these two neighbors had 
long been difficult and, at times, 
full of danger. Indeed, in 1898 
they had stood upon the very 
brink of war when a French ex- 
pedition under Marc hand had 
crossed Africa and had seized 
Fashoda on the Upper Nile in the 
sphere of influence which Great 
Britain considered emphatically 
hers. The Fashoda incident 
ended in the withdrawal of the French before the resolute attitude of 
England. The lesson of this incident was not lost upon either power, 
and six years later, on April 8, 1904, they signed an agreement which 
not only removed the sources of friction between them once for all, but 
which established what came to be known as the Entente The Entente 
Cordiale, destined to great significance in the future. By Cordiale 
this agreement France recognized England's special interests in Egypt 
and abandoned her long-standing demand that England should set a 
date for the cessation of her "occupation" of that country. On the 
other hand, England recognized the special interests of France in Morocco 
and promised not to impede their development. 

One power emphatically objected to this determination of the fate 
of an independent country by these two powers alone. Germany 




Theophile Delcasse 



4o8 FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC 

challenged this agreement and asserted that she rnust herself be con- 
sulted in such matters; that her rivals had no right by themselves to 
preempt those regions of the world which might still be considered fields 
for European colonization or control. German interests must be con- 
sidered quite as much as French or English. 

Germany's peremptory attitude precipitated an international crisis 
and led to the international Conference of Algeciras in 1906 which 
C nf r nee ^^^, however, on the whole a victory for France, acknowl- 
of Algeciras, edging the primacy of her interests in Morocco. As France 

proceeded to strengthen her position there in the succeed- 
ing years, Germany issued another challenge in 191 1, by sending a gun- 
boat to Agadir, thus creating another crisis, which for a time threatened 
a European war. In the end, however, Germany recognized the posi- 
tion of France, but only after the latter had ceded to her extensive terri- 
tories in Kamerun and the French Congo. For several years therefore 

Morocco was a danger spot in international politics, exert- 
receWes^a ^^§ ^ disturbing influence upon the relations of European 
part of the powers to each other, particularly those of France and 
Congo Germany. Finally, however, the independence of Morocco 

disappeared and the country was practically incorporated 
in the colonial empire of France. 

REFERENCES 

The Founding of thk Third Republic: Wright, The History of the Third French 
Republic, pp. 31-67; Fisher, The Republican Tradition in Europe, pp. 280-301; Seign- 
obos, The Political History of Europe Since 18 14, pp. 187-207; Cambridge Modern 
History, Vol. XII, pp. 91-113. 

The Government of France: Ogg, Governments of Europe, pp. 304-324; Lowell, 
Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, Vol. I, pp. 1-68. 

Boulanger: Wright, pp. 93-103. 

Dreyfus Case: Wright, pp. 115-145: 162-163. 

Dual Alliance : Seymour, The Diplomatic Background of the War, pp. 38-60. 
. Colonial Policy of the Third Republic: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, 
pp. 128-133; Wright, pp. 77-92, 155-160, 168-175. 

Chltrch and State in France: Wright, pp. 141-156, 163-165; Gooch, History 
of Our Time (Home University Library), pp. 34^56; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, pp. 114-122; Bodley, The Church in France, pp. 13-114; Galton, Church 
and State in France, pp. 201-268; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European 
History, Vol. II, pp. 223-232. 

Political Evolution of France in the Nineteenth Century: Seignobos, 
pp. 221-227. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
THE KINGDOM OF ITALY SINCE 1870 

The Kingdom of Italy, as we have seen, was estabhshed in 1859 and 
i860. Venetia was acquired in 1866, and Rome in 1870. In these cases, 
as in the preceding, the people were allowed to express their The King- 
wishes by a vote, which, in both instances, was practically ^^"^ of Italy 
unanimous in favor of the annexation. 

The Constitution of the new kingdom was the old Constitution of 
Piedmont, shghtly altered. It provided for a parliament of two cham- 
bers, a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The full par- The 
liamentary system was introduced, ministers representing Constitution 
the will of the Lower Chamber. The first capital was Turin, then Flor- 
ence in 1865, and finally Rome since 1871. 

The most perplexing question confronting the new kingdom con- 
cerned its relations to the Papacy. The Italian Kingdom had seized, by 
violence, the city of Rome, over which the Popes had ruled ^j^^ 
in uncontested right for a thousand years. Rome had this question of 
peculiarity over all other cities, that it was the capital of ^ ^^^*^^ 
Catholics the world over. Any attempt to expel the Pope from the city 
or to subject him to the House of Savoy would everywhere arouse the 
faithful, already clamorous, and might cause an intervention in behalf 
of the restoration of the temporal power. There were henceforth to be 
two sovereigns, one temporal, one spiritual, within the same city. The 
situation was absolutely unique and extremely delicate. It was consid- 
ered necessary to determine their relations before the government was 
transferred to Rome. It was impossible to reach any agreement with 
the Pope as he refused to recognize the Kingdom of Italy, but spoke 
of Victor Emmanuel simply as the King of Sardinia, and would make 
no concessions in regard to his own rights in Rome. Par- -j.j,g ^aw of 
liament, therefore, assumed to settle the matter alone and Papal Guar- 

3.Ilt66S 

passed May 13, 1871, the Law of Papal Guarantees, a 
remarkable act defining the relations of Church and State in Italy. 

409 



41 o THE KINGDOM OF ITALY SINCE 1870 

The object of this law was to carry out Cavour's principle of a "free 
Church in a free State," to reassure Catholics that the new kingdom had 
no intention of controlling in any way the spiritual activities of the 
Pope, though taking from him his temporal powers. Any attacks upon 
him are, by this law, to be punished exactly as are similar attacks upon 
the King. He has his own diplomatic corps, and receives diplomatic 
representatives from other countries. Certain places are set apart as 
The Curia entirely under his sovereignty: the Vatican, the Lateran, 
Romana Castel Gandolfo, and their gardens. Here no Italian offi- 

cial may enter, in his official capacity, for Italian law and administra- 
tion stop outside these limits. In return for the income lost with the 
temporal power, the Pope is granted 3,225,000 francs a year by the Ital- 
ian Kingdom. This law has been faithfully observed by the Italian 
government but it has never been accepted by the Pope nor has the 
Kingdom of Italy been recognized by him. He considers himself the 

"prisoner of the Vatican," and since 1870 has not left it 
" prisoner to go into the streets of Rome, as he would thereby be 
of the ^^ tacitly recognizing the existence of another ruler there, the 

"usurper." 
Another difficult problem for the Kingdom was its financial status. 
The debts of the different states were assumed by it and were large. 
Financial The nation was also obliged to make large expenditures on 

difficulties ^]^g army and the navy, on fortifications, and on public 
works, particularly on the building of railways, which were essential to 
the economic prosperity of the? country as well as conducive to the 
strengthening of the sense of common nationality. There were, for sev- 
eral years, large annual deficits, necessitating new loans, which, of 
course, augmented the public debt. Heroically did successive ministers 
seek to make both ends meet, not shrinking from new and unpopular 
taxes, or from the seizure and sale of monastic lands. Success was 
finally achieved, and in 1879 the receipts exceeded the expenditures. 

In 1878 Victor Emmanuel II died and was buried in the Pantheon, 
one of the few ancient buildings of Rome. Over his tomb is the inscrip- 
Death of ^^°^' "^^ ^^^ Father of his Country." He was succeeded 

Victor Em- by his SOU Humbert I, then thirty-four years of age. A 
™^^" month later Pius IX died, and was succeeded by Leo XIII, 

at the time of his election sixty-eight years of age. But nothing was 
changed by this change of personalities. Each maintained the system 



THE EDUCATIONAI. PROBLEM 411 

of his predecessor. Leo XIII, Pope from 1878 to 1903, following the 
precedent set by Pius IX, never recognized the Kingdom of Italy, nor 
did he ever leave the Vatican. He, too, considered himself a prisoner 
of the "robber king." 

Another urgent problem confronting the new kingdom was that of 
the education of its citizens. This was most imperative if the masses 

of the people were to be fitted for the freer and more re- ™ ^ 

•1 1 i-r 11 1 . ^'^^ educa- 

sponsible life opened by the political revolution. The tional 

preceding governments had grossly neglected this duty. In P'^°*''^™ 
1 86 1 over seventy-five per cent of the population of the kingdom were 
illiterate. In Naples and Sicily, the most backward in development of 
all the sections of Italy, the number of illiterates exceeded ninety per 
cent of the population; and in Piedmont and Lombardy, the most ad- 
vanced sections, one-third of the men and more than half of the women 
could neither read nor write. In 1877 a compulsory education law was 
finally passed but it has not, owing to the expense, been practically 
enforced. Though Italy has done much during the last thirty years, 
much remains to be done. Illiteracy, though diminishing, is still widely 
prevalent. Recent statistics show that forty per cent of the recruits 
in the army are illiterate. 

In 1882 the suffrage was greatly extended. Hitherto limited to those 
who were twenty-five years of age or over and paid about eight dollars 
a year in direct taxes, it was now thrown open to all over Extension 
twenty-one years of age and the tax qualification was re- of the 
duced by half; also all men of twenty-one who had had ^" ^^^^ 
a primary education were given the vote. The result was that the 
number of voters was tripled at once, rising from about 600,000 to more 
than 2,000,000. 

In 191 2 Italy took a long step toward democracy by making the 
suffrage almost universal for men, only denying the franchise to those 
younger than thirty who have neither performed their Further 
military service nor learned to read and write. Thus all extension of 
men over twenty-one, even if illiterate, have the vote if ® ^" "^® 
they have served in the army. The number of voters was thus in- 
creased from somewhat over three million to more than eight and a half 
million. 

In foreign affairs Italy made an important decision which has in- 
fluenced her course ever since. In 1882 she entered into alliance with 



412 THE KINGDOM OF ITALY SINCE 1870 

Germany, and with Austria, her former enemy and in many respects still 
The Triple her rival. This made the famous Triple Alliance which 
Alliance j^^^g dominated Europe most of the time since it was cre- 

ated. The reasons why Italy entered this combination, highly unnat- 
ural for her, considering her ancient hatred of Austria, were various: 
pique at France, for the seizure of Tunis, which Italy herself coveted, 
dread of French intervention in behalf of the Pope, and a desire to 
appear as one of the great powers of Europe. The resiilt was that she 
was forced to spend larger sums upon her army, remodeled along 
Prussian lines, and her navy, thus disturbing her finances once more. 

Italy now embarked upon another expensive and hazardous enter- 
prise, the acquisition of colonies, influenced in this direction by the 
prevalent fashion, and by a desire to rank among the world powers. 
Shut out of Tunis, her natural field, by France, she, in 1885, seized posi- 
tions on the Red Sea, particularly the port of Massawa. Two years 
Francesco later she consequently found herself at war with Abyssinia. 
Crispi 'j^]i^Q minister who had inaugurated this movement, Depre- 

tis, died in 1887. He was succeeded by Crispi, who threw himself heartily 
into the colonial scheme, extended the claims of Italy in East Africa, 
and tried to play off one native leader against another. To the new 
colony he gave the name of Eritrea. At the same time an Italian pro- 
tectorate was established over a region in eastern Africa called Somali- 
land. But all this involved long and expensive campaigns against the 

natives. Italy was trying to play the role of a great 
mUitary and power when her resources did not warrant it. The conse- 
colomal quence of this aggressive and ambitious military, naval, and 

colonial policy was the creation anew of a deficit in the 
state's finances which increased alarmingly. The deficits of four years 
amounted to the enormous sum of over seventy-five million dollars, which 
occasioned heavy new taxes and widespread discontent which was put 
down ruthlessly by despotic methods. This policy of aggrandizement 
led to a war with Abyssinia and to a disaster in 1896 in the battle of 
Adowa, so crushing as to end the political life of Crispi and to force 
Italy into more moderate courses. Popular discontent continued. Its 
cause was the wretchedness of the people, which in turn was largely 
occasioned by the heavy taxation resulting from these unwise attempts 
to play an international role hopelessly out of proportion to the coun- 
try's resources. In the south and center the movement took the form 



VICTOR EMMANUEL III 413 

of "bread riots," but in the north it was distinctly revolutionary. 
"Down with the dynasty," was a cry heard there. All these move- 
ments were suppressed by the Government, but only after much blood- 
shed. They indicated widespread distress and dissatisfaction with 
existing conditions. 

In July, 1900, King Humbert was assassinated by an Italian an- 
archist who went to Italy for that purpose from Paterson, . 
New Jersey. Humbert was succeeded by his son Victor tion of 
Emmanuel HI, then in his thirty-first year. Humbert I 

The new King had been carefully educated and soon showed that 
he was a man of intelligence, of energy, and of firmness of will. He 
won the favor of his subjects by the simplicity of his mode victor Em- 
of life, by his evident sense of duty, and by his sincere ™a°uel ill 
interest in the welfare of the people, shown in many spontaneous and 
unconventional ways. He became forthwith a more decisive factor in 
the government than his father had been. He was a democratic mon- 
arch, indiiYerent to display, laborious, vigorous. The opening decade of 
the twentieth century was characterized by a new spirit which, in a 
way, reflected the buoyancy, and hopefulness, and courage of the young 
King. But the causes for the new optimism were deeper than the mere 
change of rulers and lay in the growing prosperity of the nation, a pros- 
perity which, despite appearances, had been for some years preparing 
and which was now witnessed on all sides. The worst was evidently 
over. 

Italy is becoming an industrial nation. Silk and cotton and chemical 
and iron manufactures have advanced rapidly in recent years. The 
merchant marine has greatly increased. This transformation into a 
great industrial state is not only possible but is necessary, in„ease 

owing to her rapidly increasing population, which has of the 

/ , 4^ 1 , population 

grown, smce 1870, from about 25,000,000 to nearly 35,- 

000,000. The birth rate is higher than that of any other country of 

Europe. But during the same period the emigration from Italy has 

been large and has steadily increased. Official statistics show that, 

between 1876 and 1905, over eight milUon persons emigrated, of whom 

over four million went to various South American countries, especially 

Argentina, and to the United States. Perhaps half of the total number 

have returned to their native land, for much of the emigration is of a 

temporary character. Emigration has increased greatly under the pres- 



414 THE KINGDOM OF ITALY SINCE 1870 

ent reign, while the economic conditions of the country have begun to 
show improvement. This is explained by the fact that the industrial 
revival described above has not yet affected southern Italy and Sicily, 
whence the large proportion of the emigrants come. From those parts 
which have experienced that revival the emigration is not large. Only 
by an extensive growth of industries can this emigration be stopped or 
Problem of at least rendered normal. Italy finds herself in the position 
emigration jj^ which Germany was for many years, losing hundreds of 
thousands of her citizens each year. With the expansion of German 
industries the outgoing stream grew less until, in 1908, it practically 
ceased, owing to the fact that her mines and factories had so far devel- 
oped as to give employment to all. 

This increasing population and this constant loss by emigration 
have served in recent years to concentrate Italian thought more and 
more upon the necessity of new and more advantageous colonies, that 
her surplus population may not be drained away to other countries. The 
desire for expansion has increased and with it the determination to use 
whatever opportunities are offered by the politics of Europe for that 
purpose. The result was the acquisition in 191 2 of 
ouire^Tripoli ^^^ extensive territory of Tripoli and of a dozen ^Egean 
and twelve islands, spoils of a war with Turkey which will be more 
islands fully treated later. With this desire for expansion has 

also gone a tendency to scrutinize more carefully the 
nature of her relations with her allies, Germany and Austria. The 
advantages of the Triple Alliance became, in the minds of many, more 
and more doubtful. One obvious and positive disadvantage in an alli- 
ance with Austria was the necessary abandonment of a policy of annexa- 
tion of those territories north and northeast of Italy which are inhabited 
by Italians but which were not included within the boundaries of the 
kingdom at the time of its creation. These are the so-called Trentino, 
Unredeemed the region around the town of Trent; Trieste, and Istria. 
Italy These territories are subject to Austria and as long as 

Italy was allied with Austria she was kept from any attempt to gain 
this Italia irredenta or Unredeemed Italy, and thus so round out her 
boundaries as to include within them people who are Italian in race, 
in language, and, probably, in sympathy. 

On May 4, 191 5, Italy denounced her treaty of alliance with Austria. 
The famous Triple Alliance which had been the dominant factor in 



END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 



415 



European diplomacy since 1882 thus came to an end. On May 23, 
Italy declared war against Austria-Hunga»y and entered the European 
conflict on the side of the Entente Allies in the hope of realizing 
her " national aspirations." 

i REFERENCES 

f Italy Since 1870: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, pp. 213-242; Gooch, 
History of Our Time, pp. 57-65; Seignobos, Political History of Europe Since 181 4, 
pp. 359-372. 

Government of Italy: LovveU, Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, 
Vol. I, pp. 146-188; Ogg, Governments of Europe, pp. 362-390. 

History of Political Parties, Lowell: Vol. I, pp. 189-231; Ogg, pp. 391-403. 

Present Conditions: King and Okey, Italy Today; Underwood, United Italy. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SINCE 1848 

AUSTRIA TO THE COMPROMISE OF 1867 

Austria, perilously near dissolution in 1848, torn by revolutions in 
Bohemia, Hungary, the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, with her influence 
in Germany temporarily paralyzed, had emerged trium- 
oppression of phant from the storm and by 1850 was in a position to im- 
her subjects pose her will once more upon her motley group of states. 
She learned no lesson from the fearful crisis through which 
she had passed but at once entered upon a course of reaction of the old 
familiar kind. Absolutism was everywhere restored. Italy was ruled 
with an iron hand, Prussia was humiliated in a most emphatic manner, 
Hungary felt the full weight of Austrian displeasure. Hungary, indeed, 
was considered to have forfeited by her rebellion the old historic rights 
she had possessed for centuries. Her Diet was aboUshed, the kingdom 
was cut up into five sections, and each was ruled largely by Germans. 
Indeed the policy was to crush out all traces of separate nationality. 
Francis Joseph, however, found it in the end impossible to break the 
spirit of the Magyars, who bent beneath the autocrat but did not abate 
their claims. 

For ten years this arbitrary and despotic system continued. Then 
came the disaster in Italy in 1859, the defeats of Magenta and Solferino 
FaUure of ^^'^ ^^^ ^'-'^^ °^ Lombardy. One reason for the defeat was 
the war in the attitude of the Hungarians, many of whom joined the 
^ "^ Italian armies against Austria. Moreover, it seemed as if 

rebellion might break out at any moment in Hungary itself. 

This time the Austrian government profited by experience. In 
order to gain the support of his various peoples Francis 
Joseph re- Joseph resolved to break with the previous policy of his 
^011^^ ^^ rsigJ^' to sweep away abuses, redress grievances, and intro- 
duce liberal refornis. But the problem was exceedingly 
complicated, and was only slowly worked out after several experiments 

416 



RESISTANCE OF HUNGARY 



417 



Austria be- 
comes a con- 



had been tried which had resulted in failure. The chief difficulty lay in 
the adjustment of the claims of the different races over which he ruled. 
In 1 86 1 the Emperor decided that there should be a Parliament for 
the whole Empire, divided into two chambers, meeting annually. The 

members of the House 
o f Representatives 

were to be chosen by stitutional 

state 
the local diets, on a 

basis of population. The local leg- 
islatures were to continue for local 
affairs, but with reduced powers. 
By this constitution, granted by 
the Emperor, Austria became a 
constitutional monarchy. Abso- 
lutism as a form of government 
was abandoned. 

But this constitution was a 
failure, and chiefly because of the 
attitude of the Hungarians. To 
the first Parliament Hungary 

Hungary declined to refuses to 
, , ,. cooperate 

^ . send representatives, 

Irancis Deak. . , , . . 1^1-1 

an attitude she maintained steadily 

for several years until a new arrangement was made satisfactory to her. 

Why did she refuse to recognize a constitution that represented a great 

advance in liberalism over anything the Empire had known before? 

Why did she refuse to send representatives to a Parliament in which she 

would have weight in proportion to the number of her inhabitants? 

Why did she steadily refuse to accept an arrangement that seemed both 

liberal and fair? 

It must be constantly remembered that Hungary consists of several 
races, and that of these races the Magyars have always been the domi- 
nant one, though in a numerical minority. This dominant race was 
divided into two parties, one of irreconcilables, men who bitterly hated 
Austria, who would listen to no compromise with her, whose ideal was 
absolute independence. These men, however, were not now in control. 
They were discredited by the failures of 1849- The leaders of Hungary 
were now the moderate liberals, at whose head stood Francis Deak, 




41 8 AUSTRIA -HUNGARY SINCE 1848 

the wisest and most influential Hungarian statesman of the nineteenth 
century. These men were willing to compromise with Austria on the 
question of giving the requisite strength to the government of the whole 
Empire to enable it to play its role as a great European power, but they 
were absolutely firm in their opposition to the constitution just granted 
by Francis Joseph, and immovable in their determination to secure the 
Reasons for legal rights of Hungary. Their reasons for opposing the 
her refusal j^g^ constitution, which promised so vast an improvement 
upon the old unprogressive absolutism that had reigned for centuries, 
for thwarting the Emperor, who was frankly disposed to enter the 
path of liberalism, are most important. 

They asserted that Hungary had always been a separate nation, 
united with Austria simply in the person of the monarch, who was king 
in Hungary as he was emperor in his own hereditary states; 
Hungarians ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^S ^^ Hungary only after he had taken an 
assert their oath to support the fundamental laws of Hungary, and had 
. ufg »"*^ been crowned in Hungary with the iron crown of St. Ste- 

phen; that these fundamental laws and institutions were 
centuries old; that they were stUl the law of the land; that the new con- 
stitution was one "granted" by Francis Joseph, and, if granted, might 
be withdrawn; that, whatever its abstract merits were, it was unaccept- 
able by reason of its origin; that, moreover, its effect was to make 
Hungary a mere province of Austria; that what was wanted was not a 
constitution, but the constitution of Hungary, which had, 
de^an^s the since 1 848, been illegally suspended. Francis Joseph must 
restoration formally recognize the historic rights of Hungary. After 
constitution ^^^^ ^^^ Hungarians were willing to consider means of 
giving him powers suihcient to eiiable him to play the 
role of a great monarch in European affairs. But first and foremost 
Hungary was determined to preserve her historic personality and not 
to fuse herself at all with the other peoples subject to the House of 
Hapsburg who were in her opinion merely "foreigners." 

The Hungarians had their way. The new experiment of a single 
imperial Parliament finally broke down beneath the impact of their 
persistent refusal to accept it. For four years, from 1861 
to 1865, there was a deadlock, neither side yielding. 
Then came the Austrian defeats of 1866, Austria's expulsion from Ger- 
many and from Italy. It was necessary for the monarchy to in- 



THE DUAL MONARCHY 419 

crease its strength at home, now that its influence was so reduced 
elsewhere. 

Accordingly there was concluded in 1867 between Austria and Hun- 
gary a Compromise, or Ausgleich, as the Germans call it, which is the 
basis of the Empire to-day. This created a curious kind ^j^^ ^^^_ 
of state, defying classification, and absolutely unique. The promise of 
Empire was henceforth to be called Austria-Hungary, and ^^^"^ 
was to be a dual monarchy. Austria-Hungary consists of two distinct, 
independent states, which stand in law upon a plane of The Dual 
complete equality. Each has its own capital, the one Monarchy 
Vienna, the other Budapest. Both have the same ruler, who in Austria 
bears the title of Emperor, in Hungary that of King. Each has its own 
Parliament, its own ministry, its own administration. Each governs itself 
in all internal affairs absolutely without interference from the other. 

But the two are united not simply in the person of the monarch. 
They are united for certain affairs regarded as common to both. There 
is a joint ministry composed of three departments: Foreign The Dele- 
Affairs, War, and Finance. Each state has its own Parlia- gations 
ment, but there is no Parliament in common. In order then to have a 
body that shall supervise the work of the three joint ministries there 
was established the system of "delegations." Each Parliament chooses 
a delegation of sixty of its members. These delegations meet alternately 
in Vienna and Budapest. They are really committees of the two Par- 
liaments. They sit and debate separately, each using its own language, 
and they communicate with each other in writing. If after three com- 
munications no decision has been reached a joint session is held in which 
the question is settled without debate by a mere majority vote. 

Other affairs, which in most countries are considered common to 
all parts, such as tariff and currency systems, do not fall within the 
competence of the joint ministry or the delegations. They are to be 
regulated by agreements concluded between the two Parliaments for 
periods of ten years, exactly as between any two independent states, 
an awkward arrangement creating an intense strain every decade, for 
the securing of these agreements is most difficult. 

Each state has its own constitution, each has its own Parliament, 
consisting of two chambers. In neither was there in 1867 universal 
suffrage. A demand for this has been repeatedly made in both countries 
with results that will appear later. 



420 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SINCE 1848 

Neither of the two states had a homogeneous population. In each 
there was a dominant race, the Germans in Austria, the Magyars in 
The Hungary. The Compromise of 1867 was satisfactory to 

dominant these alone. In each country there were subordinate and 

^^^^^ rival races, jealous of the supremacy of these two, anxious 

for recognition and for power, and rendered more insistent by the sight 
of the remarkable success of the Magyars in asserting their individuality. 
In Hungary there were Croatia, Slavonia, and Transylvania; in Austria 
there were seventeen provinces, each with its own Diet, representing 
almost always a variety of races. Some of these, notably Bohemia, had 
in former centuries had a separate statehood, which they wished to re- 
cover; others were gaining an increasing self-consciousness, and desired 
a future controlled by themselves and in their own interests. 

The struggles of these races were destined to form the most im- 
portant feature of Austrian history during the next fifty years. It 
Divisive should be noted that the principle of nationality, so effec- 

efifect of the tive in bringing about the unification of Italy and Ger- 
nat^onaUty many, has tended in Austria in precisely the opposite 
in Austria- direction, the splitting up of a single state into many, 
ungary Dualism was established in 1867, but these subordinate 

races refuse to acquiesce in that as a final form, as dualism favors only 
two races, the Germans and the Magyars. They wish to change the 
dual into a federal state, which shall give free play to the several nation- 
alities. The fundamental struggle all these years has been between 
these these two principles — dualism and federalism. These racial and 
nationalistic struggles have been most confusing. In the interest of 
clearness, only a few of the more important can be treated here. 

The Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, having had 
different histories since 1867, may best be treated separately. 

THE EMPIRE OF AUSTRIA SINGE 1867 

No sooner had Austria made the Compromise with Hungary than 
she was confronted with the demand that she proceed further in the 
Austria path thus entered upon. Various nationalities, or would- 

since 1867 ]jq nationalities, demanded that they should now receive 
as liberal treatment as Hungary had received in the Compromise of 
1867. The leaders in this movement were the Czechs of Bohemia, who, 
in 1868, definitely stated their position, which was precisely that of 



RACIAL CONFLICTS 421 

the Hungarians before 1867. They claimed that Bohemia was an his- 
toric and independent nation, united with the other states Demands 
under the House of Hapsburg only in the person of the °^ *^^ Czechs 
monarch. They demanded that the kingdom of Bohemia should be 
restored, that Francis Joseph should be crowned in Prague with the 
crown of Wenceslaus. The agitation grew to such an extent that the 

Emperor decided to yield to the Bohemians. On Septem- 

, , Emperor 

ber 14, 1 87 1, he formally recognized the historic rights of prepares to 

the Kingdom of Bohemia, and agreed to be crowned king concede 

... them 

in Prague, as he had been crowned king in Budapest. 

Arrangements were to be made whereby Bohemia should gain the same 
rights as Hungary, independence in domestic affairs and union with 
Austria and Hungary for certain general purposes. The dual monarchy 
was about to become a triple monarchy. 

But these promises were not destined to be carried out. The 
Emperor's plans were bitterly opposed by the Germans of Austria, 
who, as the dominant class and as also a minority of opposition 
the whole population, feared the loss of their supremacy, of Germans 
feared the rise of the Slavs, whom they hated. They ^° *^^"* 
were bitterly opposed, also, by the Magyars of Hungary, who declared 
that this was undoing the Compromise of 1867, and who feared par- 
ticularly that the rise of the Slavic state of Bohemia would rouse the 
Slavic peoples of Hungary to demand the same rights, and the Mag- 
yars were determined not to share with them their privileged position. 
The opposition to the Emperor's plans was consequently most em- 
phatic and formidable. It was also pointed out that the management 
of foreign affairs would be much more difficult with three nations 
directing rather than two. The Emperor yielded to the opposition. 
The decree that was to place Bohemia on an equality with Austria and 
Hungary never came. Dualism had triumphed over fed- Triumph of 
eralism, to the immense indignation of those who saw the ^uabsm 
prize snatched from them. The Compromise of 1867 remained un- 
changed. The House of Hapsburg to this day rules over a dual, not 

over a federal state. 

The racial problem however could not be conjured away so easily. 
It still persisted. For several years after this triumph the German ele- 
ment controlled the Austrian Parliament. But, breaking up finally mto 
three groups and incurring the animosity of the Emperor by constantly 



422 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SINCE 1848 

blocking some of the measures he desired, the Emperor threw his in- 
fluence against them. There ensued a ministry which lasted longer 
Th T ff t^^^ any other ministry has lasted and whose policies were 
ministry in some respects of much significance. This was the Taaffe 

(1879-1893) ministry which was in office fourteen years from 1879 to 
1893. Its policies favored the development of the Czechs and the Poles, 
two branches of the Slavic race. The two races of Bohemia are the 
Germans and the Czechs. The latter were favored in various ways 
by the Taaffe ministry which was angry with the Germans. They 
secured an electoral law which assured them a majority in the Bo- 
Concessions hemian Diet and in the Bohemian delegation to the Reichs- 
to Bohemia ^g^^]^ qj- Austrian Parliament; they obtained a university, 
by the division into two institutions of that of Prague, the oldest Ger- 
man University, founded in 1356. Thus there is a German Univer- 
sity of Prague and a Czechish (1882). By various ordinances German 
was dethroned from its position as sole official language. After 1886 
office-holders were required to answer the demands of the public in the 
language in which they were presented, either German or Czechish. 
This rule operated unfavorably for German officials, who were usually 
unable to speak Czechish, whereas the Czechs, as a rule, spoke both 
languages. 

In Galicia the Poles, though a minority, obtained control of the 
Diet, supported by the Taaffe ministry, and proceeded to oppress the 
The Slavs Ruthenians; in Carniola the Slovenes proceeded to Slavi- 
favored ^j^e the province. Thus the Slavs were favored during the 

long ministry of Taaffe, and the evolution of the Slavic nationalities and 
peoples progressed at the expense of the Germans. This is the most 
striking difference between the recent development of Austria and the 
recent development of Hungary. In Austria the German domination of 
the Slavs largely broke down and has not been persisted in. The Slavic 
peoples have had some chances to develop. Racial tyranny on the other 
hand has been, as we shall see, the settled policy of the dominant race 
of Hungary. The result is that racial tension, though by no means 
absent from Austria, has been considerably relieved, whereas in Hun- 
gary it has steadily increased until it has quite reached the snapping 
point. 

A movement toward democracy also went on under the Taaffe min- 
istry and has continued since its fall. The agitation for universal suf- 



THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY 423 

frage was finally successful. By the law of January 26, 1907, all men 

in Austria over twenty-four years of age were given the ., . 

rri, 00 Universal 

right to vote. The most noteworthy result of the first suffrage in 

elections on this popular basis (May, 1907) was the return ^"^*"* 
of 87 SociaHsts, who polled over a million votes, nearly a third of those 
cast. This party had previously had only about a dozen representa- 
tives. It was noticed at the same elections that the racial parties lost 
heavily. Whether this meant that the period of extreme racial rivalry 
was over and the struggle of social classes was to succeed it, remained to 
be seen. 

THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY SINCE 1867 

Hungary, a country larger than Austria, larger than Great Britain, 
found her historic individuality definitely recognized and guaranteed 
by the Compromise of 1867. She had successfully resisted all attempts 
to merge her with the other countries subject to the House Hungary a 
of Hapsburg. She is an independent kingdom under the separate 
crown of St. Stephen. The sole official language is Mag- ^^^ °™ 
yar, which is neither Slavic nor Teutonic, but Turanian in origin. 

The political history of Hungary since the Compromise has been 
much more simple than that of Austria. Race and language questions 
have been fundamental, but they have been decided in a summary man- 
ner. The ruling race in 1867 was the Magyar, and it has remained the 
ruling race. Though numerically in the minority in 1867, comprising 
only about six millions out of fifteen millions, it was a strong race, ac- 
customed to rule and determined to rule. This minority has since 
1867 been attempting the impossible — the assimilation of the majority. 
There are four leading races in Hungary — the Magyar, The races 
the Slav, the Roumanian, the German. The Roumanians °^ Hungary 
are the oldest, claiming descent from Roman colonists of ancient times. 
They live particularly in the eastern part of the kingdom, which is 
called Transylvania. They do not constitute a solid block of peoples, 
for there are among them many German or Saxon settlements, and be- 
tween them and the independent Kingdom of Roumania, inhabited by 
people of the same race, are many Magyars. The Slavs of Hungary 
fall into separate groups. In the northern part of Hungary are the 
Slovaks. In the southern and particularly the southwestern The 
part are Serbs and Croatians. Of these the Croatians were Croatians 
the only ones who had a separate and distinct personaUty. They had 



424 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SINCE 1848 

never been entirely absorbed in Hungary, they had had their own history, 
and their own institutions. In 1868 the Magyars made a compromise 
with Croatia, similar to the compromise they had themselves concluded 
with Austria in the year preceding. In regard to all the other races, 
The Dolicv of however, the Magyars resolved to Magyarize them early 
Magyariza- and thoroughly. This policy they have steadily persisted 
^°°^ in. They have insisted upon the use of the Magyar lan- 

guage in public offices, courts, schools, and in the railway service — wher- 
ever, in fact, it has been possible. It is stated that there is not a single 
inscription in any post-office or railway station in all Hungary except in 
the Magyar language. The Magyars have in fact refused to make any 
concessions to the various peoples who live with them within the boun- 
daries of Himgary. They have, indeed, tried in every way to stamp out 
all peculiarities. For nearly fifty years this policy has been carried out 
and it has not succeeded. Hungary has not been Magyarized because 
Resistance the power of resistance of Slovaks, Croatians, Slavonians, 
of the Slavs Roumanians has proved too strong. But in the attempt, 
which has grown sharper and shriller than ever in the last decade, the 
Magyar minority has stopped at nothing. It has committed innumer- 
able tricks, acts of arbitrary power, breaches of the law, in order to 
crush out all opposition. Political institutions have been distorted 
into engines of ruthless oppression, political life has steadily deterio- 
rated in character and purpose, under the influence of this overmaster- 
ing purpose which has recognized no bounds. Hungary, which boasts 
itself a land of freedom, has ensured freedom only to the dominant race, 
the Magyars. But for the other races Hungary has been a land of 
unbridled despotism. Every imaginable instrument has been used to 
High-handed crush the Slavs or convert them into Magyars — corrup- 
measures of tion and gross illegalities in the administrative service, in 
agyars ^-^q control of elections, persecution of all independent 
newspapers, suppression of schools, the firm determination to prevent 
these subject peoples, for that they virtually are though theoretically 
fellow-citizens, from developing their own languages, literatures, arts, 
economic life, ideals. The situation has been galling to the Slavs and 
A regime of Other peoples. Magyar misrule has steadily increased in 
ruthless intensity, has in our time vitiated and corrupted the na- 

oppression tional life and has made Hungary a tinder box where dis- 
affection may blaze up at any moment. It is an odious history of op- 



THE POLICY OF THE MAGYARS 425 

pression and a danger spot for Europe. Not until the Magyars recog- 
nize that the other races Hving within Hungary have the same rights as 
they, not until they adopt a policy of fair play and justice, instead of 
amalgamation by force, will Hungary be in a healthy condition. Hun- 
gary has not been Magyarized. But racial animosities have been raised 
to the highest pitch and constitute a most alarming menace. Any 
detailed study of the relations of the dominant Magyars with the Croa- 
tians, the Serbs, the Slovaks, the Roumanians, would amply prove these 
statements. 

The reply to these assertions, given by the apologists of the Mag- 
yars, is that Hungarian law expressly and carefully recognizes the abso- 
lute equality of all the various elements and they point to the Law of 
1868 which guarantees the "Equal Rights of Nationalities." ^j^^ j^^^ ^^ 
This law is admirable and enlightened and was composed 1868 a dead 

letter 

in the finely liberal spirit of Francis Deak, who indeed was 
its chief author. But this law is a dead letter, and it has been a dead 
letter almost from the time of its passage. It has not been repealed, 
as the advantage of having so liberal an enactment to point to for the 
purpose of silencing critics and throwing dust in foreign eyes has been 
apparent to the Magyar tyrants. But the spirit of Francis Deak long 
ago passed out of the governing circles of Hungary. 

That many Roumanians in Transylvania desire separation from 
Hungary and incorporation in the Kingdom of Roumania, that many 
of the Serbs or Slavs of southern Hungary desire annexation to the 
Kingdom of Servia, need occasion no surprise. Unless the Slavs of 
Hungary receive justice, which they never have received,- they will be 
an element of danger to the kingdom. There is no evidence to show 
that the Magyars have learned this lesson. 

Moreover, in recent years a party has arisen among the Magyars 
themselves, under the leadership of Francis Kossuth, son of Louis Kos- 
suth of 1848, which is opposed to the Compromise of 1867, and wishes 
to have Hungary more independent than she is. This party demands 
that Hungary shall have her own diplomatic corps, shall control her 
relations with foreign countries independently of Austria, and shall 
possess the right to have her own tariff. Particularly does it demand 
the use of Magyar m the Hungarian part of the army of the dual mon- 
archy — a demand pressed passionately, but always resisted with un- 
shaken firmness by the Emperor, Francis Joseph, who considered that 



426 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SINCE 1848 

the safety of the state is dependent upon having one language in use 

in the army, that there may not be confusion and disas- 

over the ter on the battlefield. Scenes of great violence arose 

question of q^qj. ^]^[^ question, both in Parliament and outside of 
language 

it, but the Emperor would not yield. Government was 

brought to a deadlock, and, indeed, for several years the Ausgleich 
could not be renewed, save by the arbitrary act of the Emperor, for 
a year at a time. Francis Joseph finally threatened, if forced to con- 
cede the recognition of the Hungarian language, to couple with it the 
introduction of universal suffrage into Hungary, for which there is a 
growing popular demand. This the Magyars do not wish, fearing that 
it will rob them of their dominant position by giving a powerful weapon 
to the politically inferior but more numerous races, and that they will, 
therefore, ultimately be submerged by the Slavs about them. Less 
than twenty-five per cent of the adult male population of Hungary at 
present possess the vote. The normal operation of political institutions 
has been seriously interrupted by the violent character of the discussions 
arising out of these extreme demands for racial monopoly and national 
independence. Parliamentary freedom has practically disappeared and 
Hungary has, in recent years, been ruled quite despotically. 

The House of Hapsburg has lost since 1815 the rich Lombardo- 
Venetian kingdom (1859-66). It has gained, however, Bosnia and 
Territorial Herzegovina. As a result of the Russo-Turkish war of 
gains and 1877 these Turkish provinces were handed over by the 
osses. Congress of Berlin of 1878 to Austria- Hungary to "occupy" 

and "administer." The Magyars at the time opposed the assumption 
of these provinces, wishing no more Slavs within the monarchy, but 
despite their opposition they were taken over, so strongly was the Em- 
peror in favor of it. This acquisition of these Balkan countries rendered 
Austria-Hungary a more important and aggressive factor in all Balkan 
politics, and in the discussions of the so-called Eastern Question, the 
future of European Turkey. In October, 1908, Austria-Hungary de- 
clared these provinces formally annexed. The great significance of 
this act will be discussed later in connection with the very recent his- 
tory of southeastern Europe and the causes of the War of 1914. 

On November 21, 191 6, Francis Joseph died after a reign of nearly 
sixty-eight years. He was succeeded by his grand-nephew who assumed 
the title of Charles I. 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SINCE 1848 427 

REFERENCES 

Governments of Austria-Hungary: Lowell, Governments and Parties in Conti- 
nental Europe, Vol. II, pp. 70-94, 137-152, 162-179; Ogg, Governments of Europe, 
pp. 453-516. 

Political and Constitutional Development: Lowell, Vol. II, pp. 95-136, 
153-161; Seignobos, Political History of Europe Since i8i4,pp. 518-553; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. XII, pp. 174-212. 



CHAPTER XXV 

ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

The French Revolution had set in motion a wave of salutary 
reform which swept away numberless abuses, and demoHshed or trans- 
Widespread formed outworn and harmful institutions, not only in 
and bene- France but in other European states. To the credit of the 
ence of the Revolution is therefore due a decided improvement in the 
French conditions of life in many countries, notably in France, 

evo u ion Germany, and Italy. But upon one country its effect was 
wholly unfortunate. England had long needed a thoroughgoing reor- 
ganization of her institutions and policies, if they were to conform to 
even an elementary conception of justice. The ablest writers and 

thinkers had long ago indicated in unambiguous language 
Its unfortu- . 6 & 

nate influ- the changes that were required and that were feasible, and 

ence upon g^ statesman like William Pitt had recognized the force of 
England . ° 

their criticisms and was disposed to undertake the work of 

quickening the national life by breathing a new spirit into it. Then came 
the Revolution, enthusiastically hailed at first by the more liberal- 
minded as the dawn of a new and happier era. But conservative 
Englishmen were outraged by the attacks of the French upon prop- 
erty rights and social discriminations and, when the excesses of the ■ 
Revolution came, the vast majority of them were frightened by the 
The stiff ^^"^y ^^^^ °^ change. Would not any reform lead to the 

conservatism same excesses in England? This was the chord all English 

ngan conservatives, led by the rhetorical Edmund Burke, con- 

tinually harped upon. The result was that reform had no chance in 
England from 1793 to 18 15, that changes which would have been an 
unqualified blessing were delayed for a whole generation. 

Even after the long war with France was over and the battle of 
Waterloo was won, the same unreasonable dread of any change contin- 
ued and the same attitude of stiff, implacable opposition to all reform. 
This unbending, undeviating hostility to all change on the part of the 

428 



OPPOSITION 'TO REFORM 



429 



British Parliament, controlled during all this period by the Tory party, 
is easily understood when we come to examine the structure of English 
institutions and English public and private life. The Revolution pro- 
claimed the doctrine of equality and proceeded to abolish privilege. 
But England was conspicuously a land of privilege, of England a 
glaring discriminations between social classes, a land em- land of the 
phatically of the Old Regime. Inequality, of a pronounced ^^™® 

character, reigned in church and state and school. 




The Old Parliament Buildings. Burned in 1834 
After an aquatint by R. Havell. 

Power rested with the aristocracy, composed of the nobility and the 
gentry. The "local self-government" of England, so much praised and 
idealized abroad, as if it were government of the people, commanding 
by the people, did not exist. In the county governments P^^i^^^J^^Jy 
the local nobility filled most of the important offices; m ^ ^ ° 
the borough governments their influence was generaUy decisive. In the 
national government, that is, in Parliament, the aristocracy was solidly 
entrenched. The House of Lords was composed almost exclusively of 
large landed proprietors. This was the very bulwark of the dominant 
social class. But the House of Commons was another stronghold 
hardly less secure. This body, generally supposed to represent the 
commoners of England, conspicuously failed to do so. Its composition 
was truly extraordinary. 



43° ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

The House of Commons in 1815 consisted of 658 members: 489 of 
these were returned by England, 100 by Ireland, 45 by Scotland, 24 by 
The House Wales. There were three kinds of constituencies, the 
of Commons counties, the boroughs, and the universities. In England 
each county had two members, and nearly all of the boroughs had 
two each, though a few had but one. Representation had no rela- 
tion to the size of the population in either case. A large county and 
The system ^ ^mall county, a large borough and a small borough, had 
of represen- the same number of members. In times past the king had 
possessed the right to summon this town and that to send 
up two burgesses to London. Once given that right it usually retained 
it. If a new town should grow up, the monarch might give it the right, 
but he was not obliged to. Since 1625 only two new boroughs had been 
created. Thus the constitution of the House of Commons had become 
stereotyped at a time when population was increasing and was also 
shifting greatly from old centers to new. A growing inequality in 
the representation was a feature of the pohtical system. Thus the 
county and borough representation of the ten southern counties of 
England was 237, and of the thirty others only 252; yet the latter had 
a population nearly three times as large as the former. All Scotland 
returned only 45 members, while the single English county of Cornwall 
(including its boroughs, of course) returned 44. Yet the population of 
Scotland was eight times as large as that of Cornwall. 

The suffrage in the counties was uniform, and was enjoyed by those 
who owned land yielding them an income of forty shillings a year. 
But as this worked out it gave a very restricted suffrage. The county 
The county voters were chiefly the men who had large country estates, 
suffrage ^^^ ^Yidr dependents. Counties in which there were so 

few voters could be easily controlled by the wealthy landowners. In 
all Scotland there were not three thousand county voters; yet the popu- 
lation of Scotland was nearly two millions. Fife had 240 voters, Crom- 
arty 9. The climax was reached in Bute, where there were 21 voters 
out of a population of 14,000, only one of whom lived in the county. On 
a certain occasion only one voter attended the election meeting of that 
county. He constituted himself chairman, nominated himself, called the 
list of voters, and declared himself elected to Parliament. 

Such was the situation in the counties of Great Britain, which re- 
turned 186 members to the House of Commons. But more important 



ROTTEN BOROUGHS 431 

were the boroughs, which returned 467 members.^ In the boroughs, 
too, the influence of the landowning and wealthy class The suffrage 
was even greater and more decisive than in the counties. "^ boroughs 
The boroughs were of several kinds or types — nomination boroughs, 
rotten or close boroughs, boroughs in which there was a considerable 
body of voters, boroughs m which the suffrage was almost demo- 
cratic. It was the existence of the first two classes that Nomjnati 
contributed the most to the popular demand for the reform or pocket 
of the House. In the nomination boroughs, the right to ^"""""slis 
choose the two burgesses was completely in the hands of the patron. 
Such places might have lost all their inhabitants, yet, representation 
being an attribute of geographical areas rather than of population, 
these places were still entitled to their two members. Thus Corfe 
Castle was a ruin. Old Sarum a green mound, Gatton was part of a 
park, while Dunwich had long been submerged beneath the sea, yet 
these places, entirely without inhabitants, still had two members each 
in the House of Commons, because it had been so decided centuries 
before, when they did have a population, and because the English 
Parliament took no account of changes. Thus the owner of the ruined 
wall, or the green mound, or this particular portion of the bottom of 
the sea, had the right of nomination. 

In the rotten or close boroughs the members were elected by the cor- 
poration, that is, by the mayor and aldermen, or the suffrage was in the 
hands of voters, who, however, were so few, from a dozen to Rotten 
fifty in many cases,^ and generally so poor that the patron boroughs 
could easily influence them by bribery or intimidation to choose his 
candidates. Elections in such cases were a mere matter of form. It 
has been stated that in 1793, 245 members were notoriously returned 
by the influence of 128 peers. Thus peers, themselves sitting in the 
House of Lords, had representatives sitting in the other House. Lord 
Lonsdale thus returned nine members, and was known as "premier's 
cat-o'-nine-tails." Others returned six, five, four apiece. Some would 
sell their appointments to the highest bidder. Some of the most honor- 
able and useful members bought their seats as the only way of getting 
into Parliament on an independent basis, though they utterly detested 
the system. Thus at that time a considerable majority of the members 

1 The universities returned 5 members. 

2 Ninety members represented places of less than 50 voters each. 



432 



ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 



of the House of Commons was returned through the influence of a 
small body of men who at the same time controlled the other House. 

There were some boroughs with a fairly large or even democratic 
electorate. Here bribery was resorted to by the rich, which was easily 
possible and greatly encouraged by the fact that the polls were kept 
open for fifteen days. On the other hand there were large cities like 
Unrepre- Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Shefi&eld, which had no 

sented cities representation at all in the House of Commons, although 
they had a population of seventy-five or a hundred thousand or more. 
Well might the younger Pitt exclaim: "This House is not the represen- 
tation of the people of Great Britain; it is the representation of nominal 
boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy 
individuals, of foreign potentates." The government of England was 
not representative, but was oligarchical. 

Closely identified with the State, and, like the State, thoroughly 
permeated with the principle of special privileges, was another body, 
^j^g the Church of England. Though there was absolute reli- 

Established. gious liberty in Great Britain, though men might worship 
^^ as they saw fit, the position of the AngHcan Church was 

one greatly favored. Only members of that church possessed any real 
political power. No Catholic could be a member of Parliament, or hold 
any office in the state or municipality. In theory Protestants who dis- 
sented from the Anglican Church were likewise excluded from holding 
office. In practice, however, they were enabled to, by the device of the 
so-called Act of Indemnity, an act passed each year by Parliament, 
pardoning them for having held the positions illegally during the year 
just past. The position of the Dissenter was both burdensome and 
humiliating. He had to pay taxes for the support of the 
Church of England, though he did not belong to it. He 
had to register his place of worship with authorities of the Church of 
England. He could only be married by a clergyman of that church, 
unless he were a Quaker or a Jew. There was no such thing as civil 
marriage, or marriage by dissenting clergymen. A Roman Catholic or 
a Dissenter could not graduate from Cambridge, could not even enter 
Oxford, owing to the religious tests exacted, which only Anglicans could 
meet. The natural result of the supremacy of this church was that 
those entered it who were influenced by self-interest, who were ambi- 
tious for political preferment, for social advancement, or for an Oxford 



LACK OF EMPLOYMENT 433 

or Cambridge education for their sons. It was " ungentlemanlike " to 
be a Dissenter. 

The great institutions of England, therefore, were controlled by the 
rich, and in the interests of the rich. Legislation favored the powerful, 
the landed nobility, and the rich class of manufacturers that was grow- 
ing up, whose interests were similar. The immense mass of the people 
received scant consideration. Their education was woe- The people 
fully neglected. Probably three-fourths of the children of neglected 
England did not receive the slightest instruction. Laborers were for- 
bidden to combine to improve their conditions, which the state itself 
never dreamed of improving. Even their food was made artificially 
dear by tariffs on breadstuffs passed in the interests of the landlords. 
The reverse side of the picture of English greatness and power and pros- 
perity was gloomy in the extreme. England was in need of sweeping 
and numerous reforms to rrieet the demands of modern liberalism, 
whether in politics or economics or in social institutions. 

The demand for reform, checked by the Revolution and by the 

long struggle with France, was resumed after the final victory over 

Napoleon at Waterloo. It drew its main strength from 

'^^idcsDrcftd 

the deep and widespread wretchedness of the people. For, distress 
contrary to all expectations, peace did not bring happiness ^^^ 
and prosperity but rather intense suffering and hatred of 
class against class. Manufacturers were obliged to discharge thousands 
of workmen, because the demand for British goods fell off after the peace 
owing to the resumption of manufacturing in the conti- Lack of 
nental countries. At the time when the number of labor- employment 
ers was greater than the demand 200,000 or more men were added to 
the labor market by the reduction of the army and navy. Furthermore, 
the next few years saw a series of bad harvests. By these and by the 
Corn Law of 181 5, bread was made dearer. Add also the fact that the 
modern industrial or factory system was painfully supplanting the old 
system of household industries and temporarily throwing multitudes out 
Df employment, or employing them under hard, even inhuman condi- 
tions, and it is not difficult to understand the widespread, desperate 
discontent of the mass of the population. Parliament, an organ of the 
rich minority, refused to help them; it even forbade them to help them- 
selves, for it was a misdemeanor for workmen to combine. If they 
did they would be sent to jail. Labor was unorganized. 



434 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

The demand for reforms came primarily from the poor and disheart- 
ened masses, who possessed a remarkable leader in the person of William 
William Cobbett, the son of an agricultural laborer. For some 

Cobbett years Cobbett had published a liberal periodical called 

" The Weekly Political Register,''^ in which'he had opposed the Govern- 
ment. In i8i6 he reduced the price of his paper from a shilling to two- 
pence, made his appeal directly to the laboring class, and became their" 
guide and spokesman. The effect was instantaneous. For the first 
time the lower class had an organ, cheap, moreover brilliantly written, 
for Cobbett's literary ability was such that a London paper, the Stand- 
ard, declared that for clearness, force, and power of copious illustration 
he was unrivaled since the time of Swift. Cobbett was the first great 
popular editor, who for nearly thirty years, with but little interruption, 
expressed in his weekly paper the wishes and the emotions of the labor- 
ing classes. He was a great democratic leader, a powerful popular edi- 
tor, a pugnacious and venomous opponent of the existing regime, a 
champion of the cause of parliamentary reform. 

For Cobbett persuaded the working people that they must first get 
the right to vote before they could get social and economic reforms. 
Parliamen- Parliamentary reform must have precedence. Let the 
tary reform people get political power, let them change Parliament 
from the organ of a narrow class into a truly national assembly, and then 
they could abolish the evils from which they suffered, and put useful 
statutes into force. He demanded, therefore, universal suffrage. Other 
leaders appeared, also, and a considerable fermentation of ideas among 
the unpropertied and working classes characterized these years. 

But against these demands of the disinherited the Tory party hard- 
ened its heart. Scenting in every popular movement a new French 
Revolution it made no attempt to study or remove grievances but was 
resolved to go to. any length to stamp out the troublesome spirit of unrest 
Suspension ^^ force. This period of sorry reaction culminated in the 
of Habeas suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, a grave measure 
which only the direst necessity could justify; also in the 
passage of so-called Gag Laws which stringently restricted the freedom 
of speech, of the press, and of public meeting and discussion which had 
long been the boast of England. This period of harsh government, of 
repressive legislation, which encroached gravely upon the traditional 
liberties of the British people, lasted for about five years. 



BEGINNING OF REFORM 435 

In 1820 George III died at the age of eighty-one. He had for many 
years been insane and the regency had been exercised by Death of 
his son, who now became George IV and who reigned from George in 
1820 to 1830. 

After 1820 a change gradually came over the poHtical life of England. 
The Tory party still maintained its great majority in Parliament but 
several of the more reactionary members of the ministry yi. j f 
died or resigned, and their places were taken by men of a an era of 
younger and more liberal generation, particularly by Can- ^^ ""^ 
ning. Peel, and Huskisson, who were able to make the Tory party an 
engine of partial reform. Canning, as Foreign Secretary, freed England's 
foreign policy from aU connection wdth the Holy Alliance. He boldly 
asserted the doctrine that each nation is free to determine uggance of 
its own form of government, which doctrine was the direct the Holy 
opposite of that of Metternich. Huskisson's reforms were '^"^^ 
economic and aimed at the liberation of commerce, by removing some of 
the restrictions which had been thrown around the carrying trade, by 
reducing tariff duties on many articles of import, and by greatly simpli- 
fying the administration of the tariff system. 

Sir Robert Peel undertook at this time the reform of the Penal 
Code. That code was a disgrace to England and placed her far behind 
France and other countries. The punishment of death ^j^^ p^^^ 
could be legaUy infhcted for about two himdred offenses — Code re- 
for picking pockets, for stealing five shillings from a store, °"°* 
or forty shilUngs from a dwelling house, for stealing a fish, for injuring 
Westminster Bridge, for sending threatening letters. In 1823 the death 
penalty was abolished in about a hundred, cases. 

Another reform of these years lay in the direction of greater religious 
liberty. The disabilities from which Protestant dissenters suffered were 
removed in 1828 by the abrogation of the requirement that Abolition of 
all office-holders should take the sacrament according to the ^^^'^sjous ^^ 
rites of the Church of England and should make a declara- 
tion against the doctrine of transubstantiation. In the following year, 
after a long and bitter controversy which went to the very verge of 
civil war. Parliament redressed the grievances of the Catholics by the 
passage of the CathoHc Emancipation Act which permitted cathoUc 
Catholics henceforth to sit in either house of Parliament emancipation 
and to hold, with a few exceptions, any municipal or national office. 



436 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

This act established real political equality between Catholics and 

Protestants. 

The reforms that have just been described were carried through by 

the Tory party. There was one reform, however, more fundamental 

and important, which it was clear that that party would 
Tory oppo- r- ' t- j 

sition to the never concede, the reform of Parliament itself. The sig- 
reform of nificant features of the parliamentary system have already 

been described. That they required profound alteration 
had been held by many of the Whigs for more than fifty years. But 
the Whigs had been powerless to effect anything, having long been in 
the minority. A combination of circumstances, however, now brought 
about the downfall of the party so long dominant, and rendered pos- 
sible the great reform. George IV died on June 26, 1830, and was suc- 
ceeded by his brother William IV (1830-1837). The death of the mon- 
arch necessitated a new election of Parliament. The election resulted 
in a Tory loss of fifty members in the House of Commons. The Duke 
of Wellington was shortly forced to resign and the Whigs came in. Thus 
was broken the control the Tory party had exercised, with one slight 
interruption, for forty-six years. 

Earl Grey, who for forty years had demanded parliamentary reform, 
now became prime minister. A ministry was formed with ease, and 
The first included many able men, Durham, Russell, Brougham, 

Reform Bill Palmerston, Stanley, Melbourne, and on March i, 1831, a 
Reform Bill was introduced in the House of Commons by Lord John 
Russell. It aimed to effect a redistribution of seats on a more equi- 
table plan, and the establishment of a uniform franchise for boroughs 
in place of the great and absurd variety of franchises then existing. 
The redistribution of seats was based on two principles, the with- 
drawal of the right of representation from small, decayed boroughs and 
its bestowal upon large and wealthy towns hitherto without it. 

The bill amazed the House by its comprehensive character and 
encouraged the reformers. Neither side had expected so sweeping a 
change. The introduction of the bill precipitated a remarkable par- 
liamentary discussion, which continued with some intervals for over 
fifteen months, from March i, 1831, to June 5, 1832. 

Lord John Russell in his introduction of the measure, after stating 
that the theory of the British Constitution was no taxation without rep- 
resentation, and after showing that in former times Parliament had 



THE FIRST REFORM BILL 437 

been truly representative, said that it was no longer so. "A stranger who 
was told that this country is, unparalleled in wealth and in- Lord 
dustry, and more civilized and more enlightened than any RusseU's 
country was before it — that it is a country that prides itself ^p®^*=^ 
on its freedom, and that once in every seven years it elects representatives 
from its population to act as the guardians and preservers of that free- 
dom — would be anxious and curious to see how that representation is 
formed, and how the people choose their representatives, to whose faith 
and guardianship they entrust their free and liberal institutions. Such a 
person would be very much astonished if he were taken to a ruined moimd 
and told that the 'mound sent two representatives to Parliament; if he 
were taken to a stone wall and told that three niches in it sent two repre- 
sentatives to Parliament; if he were taken to a park where no houses 
were to be seen, and told that that park sent two representatives to Par- 
Hament. But if he were told all this, and were astonished at hearing it, he 
would be still more astonished if he were to see large and opulent towns, 
full of enterprise and industry and intelligence, containing vast magazines 
of every species of manufactures, and were then told that these towns 
sent no representatives to Parliament." 

This speech inaugurated a resounding and a bitter debate. Oppo- 
nents of the measure flatly denied that the population of a town had 
ever had anything to do with its representation or that rep- Arguments 
resentation and taxation were in any way connected in the for and against 
British Constitution. They said that some of the greatest 
men in parliamentary annals had entered the House of Commons as the 
representatives of these nomination and rotten boroughs now so vigor- 
ously denounced, — which was true, as the cases of the younger Pitt, 
Burke, Canning, Fox and others showed. To which Macaulay retorted 
that "we must judge of the form of government by its general tendency, 
not by happy accidents," and that if "there were a law that the hundred 
tallest men in England should be members of Parliament, there would 
probably be some able men among those who would Come into the House 
by virtue of this law." 

Thus the debate went on, an unusual number of members partici- 
pating. But the bill did not have long to live. The Op- Ministry de- 
position was persistent, and on April 19 the ministry was feated.Parlia- 
, T 11. 1 . i-u ment dissolved 

defeated on an amendment. It resolved to appeal to the 

people. Parliament was dissolved and a new election ordered. This 



438 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

election took place in the summer of 1831 amid the greatest excitement 
and was one of the most momentous of the century. From one end of 
the land to the other the cry was, "The bill, the whole bill, and nothing 
but the bill." There was some violence and intimidation of voters, and 
bribery on a large scale was practised on both sides. The question put 
the candidates was, ''Will you support the bill or will you oppose it?" 
The result of the election was an overwhelming victory for the 
reformers. 

On June 24, 1831, Lord John Russell introduced the second Reform 
Bill, which was practically the same as the first. The Opposition did 
Second not yield, but fought it inch by inch. They tried to wear 

Reform Bill q^^ ^j^g ministry by making dilatory motions and innu- 
merable speeches which necessarily consisted of mere repetition. In 
the course of two weeks Sir Robert Peel spoke forty-eight times, 
Croker fifty-seven times, Wetherell fifty-eight times. However, the 
Defeated by ^^^ ^^^ finally passed, September 22, by a majority of 
the House of 106. It was then sent up to the House of Lords where 
it was quickly killed (October 8, 183 1). 

It was the Lords who chiefly profited by the existing system of nomi- 
nation and rotten boroughs, and they were enraged at the proposal to 
end it. They were determined not to lose the power it gave them. 

The defeat of the bill by the Upper House caused great indignation 
throughout the country. Apparently the Lords were simply greedy of 
their privileges. Again riots broke out in London and other towns, 
expressive of the popular feeling. Newspapers appeared in mourning. 
Bells were tolled. Threats of personal violence to the Lords were made, 
and in certain instances carried out. Troops were called out in some 
places. England, it was widely felt, was on the brink of a civil war. 

Parliament was now prorogued. It reassembled December 6th, and 
on the 12th Lord John Russell rose again and introduced his third Re- 
Third form Bill. Again the same tiresome tactics of the Opposi- 
Reform Bill ^^0^. But the bill finally passed the House of Commons, 
March 23, 1832, by a majority of 116. 

Again the bill was before the Lords, who showed the same disposi- 
tion to defeat it as before. The situation seemed hopeless. Twice the 
Commons had passed the bill with the manifest and express approval of 
the people. Were they to be foiled by a chamber based on hereditary 
privilege? Riots, monster demonstrations, acrimonious and bitter de- 



THIRD REFORM BILL 439 

nmiciation, showed once more the temper of the people. There was one 
way only in which the measure coiild be carried. The King might create 
enough new peers to give its supporters a majority in the House of Lords. 
This, however, William IV at first refused to do; The Grey ministry 
consequently resigned. The King appealed to the Duke of Wellington 
to form a ministry. The Duke tried but failed. The King then gave 
way, recalled Earl Grey to power and signed a paper stating, "The King 
grants permission to Earl Grey and to his Chancellor, Lord Brougham, 
to create such a number of peers as will be sufficient to insure the passing 
of the Reform Bill." The peers were never created. The The Bill 
threat sufficed.- The biU passed the Lords, June 4, 1832, ^^^^^'^ 
about 100 of its opponents absenting themselves from the House. It 
was signed and became a law. 

The bill had undergone some changes during its passage. In its final 
form it provided that fifty-sLx nomination or close boroughs with a popu- 
lation of less than 2,000 should lose their representation entirely; that 
thirty-two others with a population of less than 4,000 should lose one 
member each. The seats thus obtained were redistributed as follows: 
twenty-two large towns were given two members each; Rgdistribu- 
twenty others were given one each, and the larger counties tkm^of 
were given additional members, sbcty-five in all. There was 
no attempt to make equal electoral districts, but only to remove more 
flagrant abuses. Constituencies stiU differed greatly in population. 

The Reform Bill also altered and widened the suffrage. Previously 
the county franchise had depended entirely upon the ownership of land; 
that is, was limited to those who owned outright land of The county 
an anr^ual value of forty shillings, the forty-shilling free- ^'^'^^^^ 
holders. The county suffrage was now extended to mclude, under 
certain conditions, those who leased land. Thus in the counties the 
suffrage was dependent still upon the tenure of land, but not upon out- 
right ownership. , • u 

In the boroughs a far greater change was made. The right to vote 
was given to all ten-pound householders, which meant all who owned 
or rented a house or shop or other building of an annual ^he 
rental value, with the land, of ten pounds. Thus the suf- borough^ 
frage was practically given in boroughs to the wealthier^ 
middle class. There was henceforth a uniform suffrage in boroughs, 
and a diversified suffrage in counties. 



440 



ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 




PassIxXg of Tuii iviiroRM Bill in the House of Lords 
From an engraving after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

The Reform Bill of 1832 was not a democratic measure, but it made 
the House of Commons a truly representative body. It admitted to 
the suffrage the wealthier middle class. The number of voters, partic- 
ularly in the boroughs, was considerably increased; but the laborers of 
England had no votes, nor had the poorer middle class. The average 



A PERIOD OF REFORMS 441 

ratio of voters to the whole population of Great Britain was about one 
to thirty. The measure, therefore, though regarded as final ^^^ ^ 
by the Whig ministry, was not so regarded by the vast democratic 
majority, who were still disfranchised. No further alteration ''®*°"° 
was made until 1867, but during the whole period there was a demand 
for extension. In 1831 and 1832 the people, by their monster meetings, 
riots, acts of violence, had helped greatly to pass the bill only to find 
when the struggle was o^^r that others and not themselves had profited 
by their efforts. 

The reforming activity of the Whigs, which had achieved the notable 
triumph of the great change in the House of Commons, continued un- 
abated for several years. Several measures of great im- ^ period of 

portance were passed by the reformed Parliament during Whig gov- 
,1 , f ernment 

the next few years. 

One of the first of these was the abolition of slavery in 1833. It had 
been long held by the British courts that slavery could not exist in the 
British Isles, that the instant a slave touched the soil of England he be- 
came free. But slavery itself existed in the West Indies, in Mauritius, 
and in South Africa. There were about 750,000 slaves in slavery in 
these colonies. To free them was a difficult matter for it ^^ "^olo^i^^ 
was considered an interference with the rights of property, and it might 
ruin the prosperity of the colonies. But there was a growing sensitive- 
ness to the moral iniquity of the institution and it was this that ulti- 
mately ensured the success of the anti-slavery agitation ably led by 
Wilberforce and Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian. A bill was 
passed in August, 1833 decreeing that slavery should cease August i, 
1834, and appropriating a hundred million dollars as compensation to the 
slave owners for the loss of their property. The slave owners were not 
satisfied, considering the sum insufficient, but were obliged to acquiesce. 

Conscience was aroused at the same time by a cruel evil right at 
home, the employment, under barbarous conditions, of children in fac- 
tories. The employment of child labor in British industries child 
was one of the results of the rise of the modern factory l«^o' 
system. It was early seen that much of the work done by machinery 
could be carried on by children, and as their labor was cheaper than that 
of adults they were swept into the factories in larger and larger numbers, 
and a monstrous evil grew up. They were, of course, the children of the 
poorest people. Many began this life of misery at the age of five or six, 



442 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

more at the age of eight or nine. Incredible as it may seem, they were 
often compelled to work twelve or fourteen hours a day. Half hour 
intervals were allowed for meals, but by a refinement of cruelty they 
were expected to clean the machinery at such times. Falling asleep at 
their work they were beaten by overseers or injured by falling against 
the machinery. In this inhuman regime there was no time or strength 
left for education or recreation or healthy development of any kind. 
The moral atmosphere in which the children' worked was harmful in 
the extreme. Physically, intellectually, morally, the result could only 
be stunted human beings. 

This monstrous system was defended by political economists, manu- 
facturers, and statesmen in the name of individual liberty, in whose 
The system name, moreover, crimes have often been committed, the 
defended liberty of the manufacturer to conduct his business without 

interference from outside, the liberty of the laborer to sell his labor 
under whatever conditions he may be disposed or, as might more prop- 
erly be said, compelled to accept. A Parliament, however, which had 
been so sensitive to the wrongs of negro slaves in Jamaica, could not 
be indifferent to the fate of English children. .Thus the long efforts of 
many English humanitarians, Robert Owen, Thomas Sadler, Fielden, 
The Factory Lord Ashley, resulted in the passage of the Factory Act 
Act, 1833 q{ 1833, which prohibited the employment in spinning and 

weaving factories of children under nine, made a maximum eight hour 
day for those from nine to thirteen, and of twelve for those from 
thirteen to eighteen. This was a very 'modest beginning, yet it repre- 
sented a great advance on the preceding policy of England. It was 
the first of a series of acts regulating the conditions of laborers in the 
interests of society as a whole, acts which have become more numerous, 
more minute, and more drastic from 1833 to the present day. The 
idea that an employer may conduct his business entirely as he likes has 
no standing in modern English law. 

The reform spirit, which rendered the decade from 1830 to 1840 so 
notable, achieved another vast improvement in the radi- 
of local cal transformation of municipal government. The local 

self -govern- self-government of England enjoyed great fame abroad but 
was actually in a very sorry condition at home. Not only 
was the Parliament of 1830 the organ of an oligarchy, but so was the 
system of local government. 



ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA 



443 



The neces- 
sity for 
reform 



Municipal government was in the hands of very small groups. Thus 
in Cambridge, with a population of 20,000 there were only 118 voters, 
in Portsmouth, with 46,000, only 102. In very numerous 
cases the situation was even worse and local government 
was in the hands of the corporation, that is, the mayor and 

the common council. The mayot 
was chosen by the council and the 
councillors held office for life and 
had the right to fill all vacancies in 
their body. These governments 
were notoriously corrupt and noto- 
riously inefficient. Generally 
speaking, those Englishmen who 
lived in boroughs were not only not 
self-governed but were wretchedly 
misgoverned. 

In 1835 a law was passed which 
provided for the election of town 
councillors by all the The reform 
inhabitants who had of municipal 
. , . J . ,1 government 

paid taxes durmg the 

preceding three years. The coun- 
cil was to elect the mayor. It is 
estimated that about two million 
people thus secured the municipal 
\'ote. This was not democracy, 
but it was a long step toward it, 
and away from oligarchy. The 
suffrage has been widened since 
1835- 




Queen Victoria, at the age of 20 
After the painting by Sir Edwin Landseer 
at Windsor Castle. 



In the midst of this period of reform occurred a change in the occu- 
pancy of the throne. King William IV died June 20, 1837, and was 
succeeded by his niece, Victoria. The young Queen was Accession of 
the daughter of the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George Queen^ 
III. She was, at the time of her accession, eighteen years 
of age. She had been carefully educated, but owing to the fact that 
William IV disliked her mother, she had seen very little of court life, 
and was very little known. Carlyle, oppressed with all the weary weight 



444 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

of this unintelligible world, pitied her, quite unnecessarily. "Poor little 
Queen! " said he, "she is at an age at which a girl can hardly be trusted 
to choose a bonnet for herself; yet a task is laid upon her from which 
an archangel might shrink." Not such was the mood of the Queen. 
She was buoyant and joyous, and entered with zest upon a reign which 
•was to prove the longest in the annals of England. She impressed all 
•g^j. who saw her with her dignity and poise. Her political 

poutical education was conducted under the guidarice, first of Leo- 

e uca ion pold, King of Belgium, her uncle, and after her accession, 
of Lord Melbourne, both of whom instilled in her mind the principles of 
constitutional monarchy. The question of her marriage was important 
and was decided by herself. Summoning her cousin, Prince Albert of 
Saxe-Coburg, into her presence, she offered him her hand — "a nervous 
thing to do," as she afterward said, yet the only thing as "he would 
never have presumed to take such a liberty" himself as to ask for the 
hand of the Queen of England. It was a marriage of affection. "She 
is as full of love as Juliet," said Sir Robert Peel. Her married life was 
exceptionally happy, and when the Prince Consort died twenty-one 
years later, she was inconsolable. During these years he was her con- 
stant adviser, and so complete was the harmony of their views that he 
was practically quite as much the ruler of the country as was she. 

As the Reform Bill of 1832 had given the suffrage only to the upper 

part of the middle classes, as it excluded the working classes whether 

in town or country from all political power, it was only 

further par- natural that the latter should refuse to consider it a finality 

liamentary g^j^^j should agitate for the extension of the suffrage to 
reform . ° 

themselves, particularly as they had helped decidedly to 

pass the great measure. Therefore the workingmen conducted a vehe- 
ment agitation for several years to secure the rights to which they felt 
they were as entitled as were those who were fortunate enough to be 
richer than they. In a pamphlet entitled The Rotten House of Commons 
(December, 1836), Lovett, one of their leaders, proved from official 
returns that, out of 6,023,752 adult males living in the United Kingdom, 
only 839,519 were voters. He also showed that despite the reform of 
1832 there were great inequahties among the constituencies, that twenty 
The People's members were chosen by 2,41 1 votes, twenty more by 86,072. 
Charter 'p]-^g immediate demands of the Radicals were expressed in 

"The People's Charter," or programme, a petition to Parliament drawn 



THE CHARTIST AGITATION 445 

up in 1838. They demanded that the right to vote be given to every 
adult man, declaring, "We perform the duties of freemen, we must 
have the privileges of freemen"; that voting be secret, by ballot rather 
than orally as was then the custom, so that every voter could be free 
from intimidation, and less exposed to bribery; that property quali- 
fications for membership in the House be abolished; and that the 
members receive salaries so that poor men, laborers themselves and 
understanding the needs of laborers, might be elected to Parliament if 
the voters wished. They also demanded that the House of Commons 
should be elected, not for seven years, as was then the law, but simply 
for one- year. The object of this was to prevent their representatives 
from misrepresenting them by proving faithless to their pledges or in- 
different or hostile to the wishes of the voters. Annual elections would 
give the voters the chance to punish such representatives speedily 
by electing others in their place. "The connection between the repre- 
sentatives and the people, to be beneficial, must be intimate," said the 
petition. Such were the five points of the famous Charter designed to 
make Parliament representative of the people, not of a class. Once 
adopted, it was felt that the masses would secure control of the legisla- 
ture and could then improve their conditions. 

The Chartists had almost no influence in Parliament, and their agi- 
tation had consequently to be carried on outside in workingmen's asso- 
ciations, in the cheap press, in popular songs and poems, in monster 
meetings addressed by impassioned orators, in numerous character of 
and unprecedentedly large petitions. One of these was the Chartist 
presented in 1839. It was in the form of a large cylinder ^^' ^ '°" 
of parchment about four feet in diameter, and was said to have been 
signed by 1,286,000 persons. The petition was summarily rejected. 
Notwithstanding this failure another was presented in 1842, signed, it 
was asserted by over three million persons. Borne through the streets 
of London in a great procession it was found too large to be carried 
through the door of the House of Commons. It was therefore cut up 
into several parts and deposited on the floor. This, too, was rejected. 

In 1848 another attempt was made. Encouraged by the French Revo- 
lution of that year the Chartists held a great national convention or 
people's parliament in London, and planned a vast demonstration on 
behalf of the Charter. Half a million men were to accompany a new 
petition to Parliament, which it was expected would be overawed and 



446 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

would then yield to so imposing a demand of an insistent people. The 
Government was so alarmed that it entrusted the safety of London to 
the Duke of Wellington, then seventy-nine years of age. His arrange- 
ments were made with his accustomed thoroughness. One hundred and 
seventy thousand special constables were enrolled, one of whom was 
Louis Napoleon, who before the year was out was to be President of the 
French Republic. The result was that the street demonstration was a 
failure, and the petition, examined by a committee of the House, was 
found to contain, not 5,706,000 signatures, as asserted, but less than two 
million. It was summarily rejected. The movement died out owing to 
ridicule, internal quarrels, but particularly because of the growing pros- 
perity of the country, which resulted from the abolition of the Corn 
Laws and the adoption of Free Trade. 

It is difficult to appraise the value and significance of this movement. 
Judged superficially and by immediate results the Chartists failed com- 
The signifi- pletely. Yet most of the changes they advocated have 
cance of the since been brought about. There are now no property, 
movemen qualifications for members of the House of Commons, and 

the secret ballot has been secured; the suffrage is enjoyed by the 
immense majority of men, though not by all; members now receive 
salaries, and Parliaments are now elected for five years. It seems that 
some of the tremendous impetus of England toward democracy, which 
grew so marked toward the close of the nineteenth century, was derived 
from this movement of the Chartists. 

Simultaneously with the Chartist movement another was going on 
which had a happier issue. The adoption of the principle of free trade 
must always remain a great event in English history, and was the cul- 
mination of a remarkable movement that extended over forty years, 
though its most decisive phase was concentrated into a few years of 
intense activity. The change was complete from a policy which England 
in common with the rest of the world had followed for centuries and 
which other countries still follow. 

England had long believed in protection. Hundreds of articles were 
subject to duties as they entered the country, manufactured articles, 
England's ^^^ materials. The most important single interest among 
policy of all those protected was agriculture. Corn is a word used 

in England to describe wheat and bread stuffs generally. 
The laws imposing duties on corn were the keystone of the whole 



THE CORN LAWS 



447 



system of protection. The advocates of free trade necessarily therefore 
deUvered their fiercest assaults upon the Corn Laws. If The Corn 
these could be overthrown it was believed that the whole ^^^s 
system would fall. But for a long while the landlord class was so en- 
trenched in political power that 
the law remained impregnable. 
The manufacturers and the mer- 
chants, however, were in favor of 
free trade, as the only way of en- 
larging the foreign market of Eng- 
land and thus keeping English 
factories running and English 
workingmen employed. But for- 
eigners would buy English goods 
only if they might pay for them 
in their own commodities, their 
grain, their lumber. Again, as 
the population was increasing, 
England needed cheaper food. In 
1839 there was founded in Man- 
chester, a great manufacturing 
center, the Anti-Corn Law League 
whose leader was Richard Cobden, a successful and traveled young 
business man. He was soon joined by John Bright, like ^^^ j^^^_ 
himself a manufacturer, unlike him one of the great popu- Corn-Law 
lar orators of the nineteenth century. The methods of the ^^^^ 
League were businesslike and thorough. Its campaign was one of per- 
suasion. It distributed a vast number of pamphlets, sent out a corps 
of speakers to deliver lectures, setting forth the leading arguments in 
favor of free trade. Year after year this process of argumentation went 
on. It was an earnest and sober attempt to convince Englishmen that 
they should completely reverse their commercial policy in the interest of 
their own prosperity. But it does not seem that this agitation would 
have succeeded in securing the repeal of the Corn Laws had it not been 
for a great natural calamity, the Irish famine of 1845. ^^^ JJ.^^^^ 
The food of the vast majority of the Irish people was the famine of 
potato. More than half of the eight million inhabitants of 
Ireland depended upon it alone for sustenance and with a large part of 




RiCHLiRD Cobden 



448 



ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 



Remaining 
protective 
duties grad 
ually re- 
moved 



the rest it was the chief article of diet. Now this crop completely failed, 
owing to a disease that had set in. Famine came and tens of thousands 
Repeal of perished from starvation. The only way to rescue the 
the Corn Laws population was to repeal the Corn Laws and thus let in 
the food supplies of the Continent, to take the place of the blighted 
potato. In 1846, under this 
tremendous pressure, Sir Rob- 
ert Peel carried against bitter 
opposition the repeal of the 
Corn Laws. There still re- 
mained after this many duties 
in the English 
tariff but the key- 
stone of the whole 
system of protec- 
tion was re- 
moved. One after another 
during the next twenty years 
the remaining duties were re- 
moved. England still has a 
tariff but it is for revenue only, 
not for the protection of Eng- 
lish industries. Nearly all of 
the revenue from the present 
tariff comes from the duties on 
tobacco, tea, spirits, wine, and 
sugar, mostly commodities not ■^^^^ right. 

produced in England. England is absolutely dependent upon other 
countries for her food supplies. 

The twenty years succeeding the repeal of the Corn Laws were years 
of quiescence and transition. Comparatively few changes of impor- 
Labor tance were made in legislation. Those of greatest signifi- 

legislation cance concerned the regulation of employment in factories 
and mines. Such legislation, merciful in its immediate effects and mo- 
mentous in the reach of the principles on which it rested, was enacted 
particularly during the decade from 1840 to 1850. The initial step in 
such legislation had been taken in the Factory Act of 1833, already de- 
scribed, a law that regulated somewhat the conditions under which chil- 




FACTORY LAWS 



449 



dren and women could be employed in the textile industries. But labor 
was unprotected in many other industries, in which gross abuses pre- 
vailed. One of the most famous parliamentary reports of the nine- 
teenth century was that of a commission appointed to investigate the 
conditions in mines. Published in 1842, its amazing reve- r yj tj 
lations revolted public opinion and led to quick action. It of labor 
showed that children of five, six, seven years of age were ^'^ °"iies 
employed underground in coal mines, girls as well as boys; that women 

as well as men labored under con- 
ditions fatal to health and morals; 
that the hours were long, twelve 
or fourteen a day, and the dangers 
great. They were veritable beasts 
of burden, dragging and pushing 
carts on hands and knees along 
narrow and low passageways, in 
which it was impossible to stand 
erect. Girls of eight or ten carried 
heavy buckets of coal on their 
backs up steep ladders many times 
a day. The revelations were so 
astounding and sickening that a 
law was passed in 1842 which for- 
bade the employment of women 
and girls in mines, and which per- 
mitted the employment of boys of 
ten for only three days a week. 
Once embarked on this policy of protecting the economically depend- 
ent classes. Parliament was forced to go further and further in the gov- 
ernmental regulation of private industry. It has enacted Factory 
a long series of statutes which it is here impossible to ^^^^ 
describe, so extensive and minute are their provisions. The series is 
being constantly lengthened. 

In these various acts of legislation just described and in other ways 
England showed during these middle years of the century that she was 
outgrowing old forms of thought and organization and was evidently 
tending more and more toward democracy. Yet this general trend was 
not mirrored in her political life and institutions. Parliament remamed 




Sir Robert Peel 
After painting by John Linnell. 



4SO 



ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 




REFORM BILL OF 1867 451 

what the Reform Bill of 1832 had made it. From 1832 to 1867 there was 
no alteration either in the franchise or in the distribution of seats in the 
House of Commons. This was the era of middle class rule, as its pred- 
ecessor had been one of aristocratic rule. 

But during this period the demand was frequently made that the 
suffrage be extended. Not more than one man in six then had the right 
to vote — only "the ten-pound householders." In 1866, ^jj ^ ^ 
to meet the growing demand Gladstone, leader of the for a wider 
House of Commons under the Earl Russell ministry, pro- ^" ^^^^ 
posed a moderate extension of the suffrage. The very moderation sealed 
its doom, as it aroused no enthusiasm among the people. There was no 
sign that the people wanted this measure and therefore the Rgfo^ni de- 
Conservatives, joined by many Liberals, joyously killed it. feated in 
The ministry thereupon resigned and Lord Derby became 
prime minister, with Disraeli the leading member of the cabinet. The 
Conservatives were once more in power, and the opponents of reform 
thought that they had effectually stemmed the advance toward democ- 
racy. Never were politicians more completely deceived. The rejection 
of even this modest measure aroused the people to indignation. Glad- 
stone lost all his timidity and became a fiery apostle of an extensive re- 
form. "You cannot fight against the future; time is on our side" was 
a Gladstonian phrase that now became a battle cry. John Bright, 
with ill-concealed menace, incited the people to renew the scenes of 
1832. Great popular demonstrations of the familiar kind occurred in 
favor of the bill. The people were manifestly in earnest. 

Seeing this, and feeling that reform was inevitable, and that, such 
being the case, the Conservative party might as well reap the advan- 
tages of granting it as to allow those advantages to accrue ^^^^^^ 
to others, Disraeli in the following year, 1867, introduced a carried by 
Reform Bill. This was remodeled almost entirely by the J^J^raeU in 
Liberals, who, led by Gladstone, defeated the proposals of 
the ministry time after time, and succeeded in having their own prin- 
ciples incorporated in the measure. The bill as finally passed was largely 
the work of Gladstone, practically everything he asked being in the end 
conceded, but it was the audacity and subtlety and resourcefulness of 
Disraeli that succeeded in getting a very radical bill adopted by the very 
same legislators who the year before had rejected a moderate one. 

The bill, as finally passed in August, 1867, closed the rule of the 



452 ENGLAND FROM 1815 TO 1868 

middle class in England, and made England a democracy. The fran- 
Provisions chise in boroughs was given to all householders. Thus, 
of the bill instead of ten-pound householders, all householders, what- 
ever the value of their houses, were admitted; also, all lodgers who had 
occupied for a year lodgings of the value, unfurnished, of ten pounds, 
or about a dollar a week. In the counties the suffrage was given to all 
those who owned property yielding five pounds clear income a year, 
rather than teri pounds, as previously; and to all ''occupiers" who paid 
at least twelve pounds, rather than fifty poimds, as hitherto. Thus the 
better class of laborers in the boroughs, and practically all tenant farm- 
ers in the counties, received the vote. By this bill the number of voters 
was nearly doubled. 

So sweeping was the measure that the prime minister himself. Lord 
Derby, called it a ''leap in the dark." Carlyle, forecasting a dismal 
future, called it "shooting Niagara." Robert Lowe, whose memorable 
attacks had been largely instrumental in defeating the meager measure 
of the year before, now said, "we must educate our masters." It should 
be noted that during the debates on this bill, John Stuart Mill made a 
strongly reasoned speech in favor of granting the suffrage to women. 
The House considered the proposition highly humorous. Nevertheless 
this movement, then in its very beginning, was destined to persist 
and grow. 

REFERENCES 

The Old Parliamentary System: Ilbert, Parliament (Home IJniversity Library), 
pp. 33-47; May, Constitutional History of England, Vol. I, Chap. VI; Beard, Intro- 
duction to the English Historians, pp. 538-548; Seignobos, Political History of Europe 
Since 1814, pp. 10-18. 

Reform Bill of 1832: McCarthy, Epoch of Reform, pp. 12-83; Beard, pp. 549- 
565; Rose, Rise of Democracy, pp. 9-52; Cheyney, Readings in English History, pp. 
679-690; Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, Vol. II, pp. 
239-245. 

Chartism: Rose, pp. 84-146; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. I, 
Chaps. V and XVIII. 

Free Trade Movement: McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. I, Chaps. 
XIV-XVI; McCarthy, Life of Peel, Chaps. XII and XIII; Cheyney, pp. 708-715. 

Queen Victoria's Early Life: Lee, Life of Queen Victoria, pp. 1-98. 

The Youth of Disraeli: McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. I, Chap. 
XVI. 

Reform Bill of 1867: McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. II, Chaps. 
L-LIL 



CHAPTER XXVI 
ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

There is little doubt that the Conservatives expected to be rewarded 
for passing the Reform Bill of 1867, as the Liberals had been for passing 
that of 1832, thought, that is, that the newly enfranchised would, out 
of gratitude, continue them in office. If so, they were destined to a 
great disappointment, for the elections of 1868 resulted in giving the 
Liberals a majority of a hundred and twenty in the House of Com- 
mons. Gladstone became the head of what was to prove a very notable 
ministry. 

Gladstone possessed a more commanding majority than any prime 
minister had had since 1832. As the enlargement of the franchise in 
1832 had been succeeded by a period of bold and sweeping The Great 
reforms, so was that of 1867 to be. Gladstone was a per- Ministry 
feet representative of the prevailing national mood. The recent cam- 
paign had shown that the people were ready for a period of reform, of 
important constructive legislation. Supported by such a majority, and 
by a public opinion so vigorous and enthusiastic, Gladstone stood forth 
master of the situation. No statesman could hope to have more favor- 
able conditions attend his entrance into power. He was the head of a 
strong, united, and resolute party and several men of great ability were 
members of his cabinet. 

The man who thus became prime minister at the age of fifty-nine 
was one of the notable figures of modern English history. His parents 
were Scotch, His father had hewed out his own career, and from small 
beginnings had, by energy and talent, made himself one of the wealth- 
iest and most influential men in Liverpool, and had been elected a 
member of Parliament. Young William Ewart Gladstone ^^j^^^ 
received ''the best education then going" at Eton College Ewart 
and Oxford University, in both of which institutions he fgo^g^.^JsJI' 
stood out among his fellows. At Eton his most intimate 
friend was Arthur Hallam, the man whose splendid eulogy is Tennyson's 

453 



454 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

In Memoriam. His career at Oxford was crowned by brilliant scholarly 
successes, and here he also distinguished himself as a speaker in the 
Union, the university debating club. Before leaving the university his 
thought and inclination were to take orders in the church, but his father 
was opposed to this and the son yielded. In 1833 he took his seat in 
Entrance ^^^ House of Commons as representative for one of the 

into rotten boroughs which the Reform Bill of the previous year 

ar amen j^^^ ^^^ abolished. He was to be a member of that body 
for over sixty years, and for more than half that time its leading mem- 
ber. Before attaining the premiership, therefore, in 1868, he had had a 
long political career and a varied training, had held many offices, cul- 
minating in the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of 
the House of Commons. Beginning as a Conservative (Macaulay called 
him in 1838 the "rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories"), he 
came under the influence of Sir Robert Peel, a man who, conservative 
by instinct, was gifted with unusual prescience and adaptability, and 
who possessed the courage required to be inconsistent, the wisdom to 
change as the world changed. Gladstone had, after a long period of 
transition, landed in the opposite camp, and was now the leader of the 
Leader of Liberal Party. By reason of his business ability, shown in 
the Liberal the management of the nation's finances, his knowledge of 

^^ parliamentary history and procedure, his moral fervor, his 

elevation of tone, his intrepidity and courage, his reforming spirit, and 

his remarkable eloquence, he was eminently qualified for leadership. 

When almost sixty he became prime minister, a position he was destined 

„, , to fill four times, displaying marvelous intellectual and 

Gladstone's . . . ? . 

First physical energy. His administration, lasting from 1868 to 

ST^4 ^^7^^' ^^ called the Great Ministry. The key to his policy 

is found in his remark to a friend when the summons 

came from the Queen for him to form a ministry: "My mission is 

to pacify Ireland." The Irish question, in fact, was to be the most 

Dominance absorbing interest of Mr. Gladstone's later political career, 

of Irish dominating all four of his ministries. It has been a very 

ques ons lively and at times a decisive factor in English politics 

for the last fifty years. 

To understand this question, a brief survey of Irish history in the 

nineteenth century is necessary. Ireland was all through the century 

the most discontented and wretched part of the British Empire. WhUe 



THE COMPLEX PROBLEM OF IRELAND 455 

England constantly grew in numbers and wealth, Ireland decreased 
in population, and her misery increased. Ireland was inhabited by 
two peoples, the native Irish, who were Catholics, and settlers from 
England and Scotland, who were for the most part Anglicans or 
Presbyterians. The latter were a small but powerful minority. 

The fundamental cause of the Irish question lay in the fact that 
Ireland was a conquered country, that the Irish were a subject race. 
As early as the twelfth century the English began to in- Ireland ^ 
vade the island. Attempts made by the Irish at various conquered 
times during sk hundred years to repel and drive out the ^°^^ ^^ 
invaders only resulted in rendering their subjection more complete and 
more galling. Irish insurrections have been pitilessly punished, and race 
hatred has been the consuming emotion in Ireland for centuries. The 
contest has been unequal, owing to the far greater resources of England 
during all this time. The result of this turbulent history was that the 
Irish were a subject people in their own land, as they had been for cen- 
turies, and that there were several evidences of this so conspicuous and 
so burdensome that most Irishmen could not pass a day without feeling 
the bitterness of their situation. It was a hate-laden atmosphere which 
they breathed. 

The marks of subjection were various. The Irish did not own the 
land of Ireland, which had once belonged to their ancestors. The vari- 
ous conquests by English rulers had been followed by ex- The agrarian 
tensive confiscations of the land. Particularly extensive question 
was that of Cromwell. These lands were given in large estates to 
Englishmen. The Irish were mere tenants, and most of them tenants- 
at-will, on lands that now belonged to others. The Irish have always 
regarded themselves as the rightful owners of the soil of Ireland, have 
regarded the English landlords as usurpers, and have desired to re- 
cover possession for themselves. Hence there has arisen the agrarian 
question, a part of the general Irish problem. 

Again, the Irish had long been the victims of religious intolerance. 
At the time of the Reformation they remained Catholic, while the Eng- 
lish separated from Rome. Attempts to force the Anglican Church 
upon them only stiffened their opposition. Nevertheless, at ^he 
the opening of the nineteenth century they were paying reiigicais 
tithes to the Anglican Church in Ireland, though they 
were themselves ardent Catholics, never entered a Protestant church, and 



456 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

were supporting their own churches by voluntary gifts. Thus they con- 
tributed to two churches, one aUen, which they hated, and one to which 
they were devoted. Thus a part of the Irish problem was the religious 
question. 

Again, the Irish did not make the laws which governed them. In 
iSoo their separate Parliament in Dublin was abolished, and from iSoi 
there was only one Parliament in Great Britain, that in London. While 
J.. Ireland henceforth had its quota of representatives in the 

political House of Commons, it was always a hopeless minority. 

question Moreover, the Irish members did not really represent the 

large majority of the Irish, as no Catholic could sit in the House of Com- 
mons. There was this strange anomaly that, while the majority of the 
Irish could vote for members of Parliament, they must vote for 
Protestants — a bitter mockery. The Irish demanded the right to 
govern themselves. Thus another aspect of the problem was purely 
political. 

The abuse just mentioned was removed in 1829, when Catholic 
Emancipation was carried, which henceforth permitted Catholics 
Catholic ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^® House of Commons. The English states- 

Emancipa- men granted this concession only when forced to do so 
by the imminent danger of civil war. The Irish conse- 
quently felt no gratitude. 

Shortly after Catholic Emancipation had been achieved, the Irish, 
under the matchless leadership of O'Connell, endeavored by much the 
same methods to obtain the repeal of the Union between England and 
The repeal Ireland, effected in 1801, and to win back a separate legis- 
movement lature and a large measure of independence. This move- 
ment, for some time very formidable, failed completely, owing to the 
iron determination of the English that the union should not be broken, 
and to the fact that the leader, O'Connell, was not willing in last 
resort to risk civil war to accomplish the result, recognizing the hope- 
lessness of such a contest. This movement came to an end in 1843. 
However, a number of the younger followers of O'Connell, chagrined 
at his peaceful methods, formed a society called "Young Ireland," 
the aim of which was Irish independence and a republic. They rose in 
revolt in the troubled year, 1848. The revolt, however, was easUy 
put down. 

As if Ireland did not suffer enough from political and social evils, 



THE IRISH CHURCH 457 

an appalling catastrophe of nature was added. The Irish famine of 
1845-47, to which reference has already been made, was a The Irish 
tragic calamity, far-reaching in its effects. The repeal of famine 
the Corn Laws did not check it. The distress continued for several 
years, though gradually growing less. The potato crop of 1846 was 
inferior to that of 1845, and the harvests of 1848 and 1849 were far from 
normal. Charity sought to aid, but was insufhcient. The government 
gave money, and later gave rations. In March, 1847 over 700,000 people 
were receiving government support. In March and April of that year 
the deaths in the workhouses alone were more than ten thousand a month. 
Peasants ate roots and lichens, or flocked to the cities in the agony of 
despair, hoping for reUef. Multitudes fled to England or crowded the 
emigrant ships to America, dying by the thousand of fever -jy^f.^^^ of 
or exhaustion. It was a long drawn out horror, and when the popula- 
it was over it was found that the population had decreased 
from about 8,300,000 in 1845 to less than 6,600,000, in 1851. Since then 
the decrease occasioned by emigration has continued. By 1881 the 
population had fallen to 5,100,000, by 1891 to 4,700,000, by 1901 to 
about 4,450,000. Since 185 1 perhaps 4,000,000 Irish have emigrated. 
Ireland, indeed, is probably the only country whose population decreased 
in the nineteenth century. Year after year the emigration to the United 
States continued. 

When Gladstone came into power in 1868 he was resolved to pacify 
the Irish by removing some of their more pronounced grievances. 

The question of the Irish Church, that is,.of the Anglican Church in 
Ireland, the church of not more than one-eighth of the population, yet 
to which all Irishmen, Catholic or Protestant, paid tithes, ^he Irish 
was the first grievance attacked. In 1869 Gladstone pro- Church^^cUs- 
cured the passage of a law disestablishing and partly dis- 
endowing this church. The Church henceforth ceased to be connected 
with the State. Its bishops lost their seats in the House of Lords. 
It became a voluntary organization and was permitted to retain a 
large part of its property as an endowment. It was to have afl 
the church buildings which it had formerly possessed. It was stiU 
very rich but the connection with the Church of England was to cease 

January i, 1871. 

Gladstone now approached a far more serious and perplexmg prob- 
lem, the system of land tenure. Ireland was almost exclusively an agri- 



458 



ENGLAND SINCE 1868 



cultural country, yet the land was chiefly owned not by those who lived 
on it and tilled it, but by a comparatively small number of landlords 
who held large estates. Many of these were Englishmen, absentees. 
System of who rarely or 
land tenure never came to 
Ireland, and who regarded 
their estates simply as so 
many sources of revenue. 
The business relations with 
their tenants were carried 
on by agents or bailiffs, 
whose treatment of the ten- 
ants was frequently harsh 
and exasperating. If the 
peasant failed to pay his 
rent he could be evicted 
forthwith. As he was 
obliged to have land on 
which to raise his potatoes, 
almost his sole sustenance, 
he frequently agreed to pay 
H larger rent than the value 
of the land justified. Then 
in time he would be evicted 
and faced starvation. 
Moreover when a landlord 
Tvr^ ^«^r,»r, evicted his 

Wo compen- 
sation for tenant he was 




William E. Gladstone ■ 

From engraving by T. O. Barlow, after the painting by 
J. E. Millais. 



improvements ^ot obliged to 
pay for any buildings or improvements erected or carried out by the ten- 
ant. He simply appropriated so much property created by the tenant. 
Naturally there was no inducement to the peasant to develop his farm, 
for to do so meant a higher rent, or eviction and confiscation of his im- 
provements. It would be hard to conceive a more unwise or unjust 
system. It encouraged indolence and slothfulness. 

Chronic and shocking misery was the lot of the Irish peasantry. 
"The Irish peasant," says an official English document of the time, "is 
the most poorly nourished, most poorly housed, most poorly clothed of 



THE LAND ACT OF 1870 459 

any in Europe; he has no reserve, no capital. He lives from day to 
day." His house was generally a rude stone hut, with a The 
dirt iioor. The census of 1841 established the fact that in peasantry 
the case of forty-six per cent of the population, the entire family lived 
in a house, or, more properly, hut of a single room. Frequently the 
room served also as a barn for the live stock. 

Stung by the misery of their position, and by the injustice of the 
laws which protected the landlord and gave them only two hard al- 
ternatives, surrender to the landlord or starvation, believ- Deeds of 
ing that when evicted they were also robbed, and goaded violence 
by the hopeless outlook for the future, the Irish, in wild rage, com- 
mitted many atrocious agrarian crimes, murders, arson, the killing or 
maiming of cattle. This in turn brought a new coercion law from the 
English Parliament which only aggravated the evil. 

In the Land Act now passed to remedy the evils of this system (1870) 
it was provided that, if evicted for any other reason than the non- 
payment of rent, the tenant could claim compensation. He The Land 
was also to receive compensation for any permanent im- ^'^^ °^ ^^"^^ 
provements he had made on the land whenever he should give up his 
holding for any reason whatever. There were certain other clauses 
in the bill designed to enable the peasants to buy the land outright, 
thus ceasing to be tenants of other people and becoming landowners 
themselves. This could be done only by purchasing the estates of the 
landlords, and this obviously the peasants were unable to do. It was 
provided therefore that the state should help the peasant up to a 
certain amount, he in turn repaying the state by easy installments for 
the money loaned. This Land Act of 1870 did not achieve what was 
hoped from it, did not bring peace to Ireland. Landlords found ways 
of evading it and evictions became more numerous than ever. Nor 
did the land purchase clauses prove effective. Only seven sales were 
made up to 1877. But the bill was important because of the prin- 
ciples it involved, and was to exercise a profound influence upon later 
legislation. For the time being nothing further was done for Ireland. 

Another measure of this active ministry was the Forster Education 
Act of 1870, designed to provide England with a national system of 
elementary education. England possessed no such sys- Educational 
tem, it being the accepted opinion that education was '■«^°^™ 
no part of the duty of the state. The result was that the educa- 



46o ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

tional facilities were deplorably inadequate and inferior to those of 
many other countries. The work that the state neglected was discharged 
Church in 3- measure by schools which were maintained by the 

schools various religious denominations, particularly the Anglican, 

also the Catholic and the Methodist. But in 1869 it was estimated 
that of 4,300,000 children in need of education, 2,000,000 were not in 
school at all, 1,000,000 were in very inferior schools, and only 1,300,000 
in schools that were fairly efficient. 

The Gladstone ministry carried, in 1870, a bill designed to provide 
England for the first time in her history with a really national system of 
Th F t r elementary education. The system then established re- 
Education mained without essential change until 1902. It marked a 
Act of 1 great progress in the educational facilities of England. The 

bill did not establish an entirely new educational machinery, to be paid 
for by the state and managed by the state. . It adopted the church schools 
on condition that they submit to state inspection to see if they were 
maintaining a certain standard. . In that case they would receive finan- 
cial aid from the state. But where there were not enough such schools, 
local school boards were to be elected in each such district with power 
to establish new schools, and to levy local taxes for the purpose. Under 
this system, which provided an adequate number of schools of respect- 
able quality, popular education made great advances. In twenty years 
the number of schools more than doubled, and were capable of accom- 
modating all those of school age. The law of 1870 did not establish 
either free or compulsory or secular education, but, in 1880, attendance 
was made compulsory and in 1891 education was made free. 

A number of other far-reaching reforms, democratic in their tendency, 
were carried through by this ministry. The army was reformed some- 
Army what along Prussian lines, though the principle of com- 
reform pulsory military service was not adopted. Officers' positions, 
which had preyiously been acquired by purchase and which were there- 
fore monopolized by the rich, by the aristocracy, were now thrown 
Civil ser- Open to merit. The Civil Service was put on the basis 
vice reform Qf standing in open competitive examinations. The uni- 
versities of Oxford and Cambridge were rendered thoroughly national 
University by the abolition of the religious tests which had previously 
reform made them a monopoly of the Church of England. Hence- 
forth men of any religious faith or no religious faith could enter them, 



DISRAELI AND IMPERIALISM 461 

could graduate from them. The universities henceforth belonged to all 
EngUshmen. 

The Australian ballot was introduced, thus giving to each voter his 
independence. Previously intimidation or bribery had been very easy 
as voting had been oral and public; now the voting was secret voting 
secret. Another feature of Gladstone's ministry, which introduced 
cost him much of his popularity at home, but was an act of high states- 
manship and an indisputable contribution to the cause of peace among 
nations, was its adoption of the principle of arbitration in the contro- 
versy with the United States over the Alabama affair. The grievances 
of the United States against England because of her conduct during our 
Civil War were a dangerous source of friction between the two countries 
for many years. Gladstone agreed to submit them to ^j^^ 
arbitration, but as the decision of the Geneva Commission Alabama 
was against England (1872), his ministry suffered in popu- ^"^^^ 
larity. Nevertheless, Gladstone had established a valuable prece- 
dent. This was the greatest victory yet attained for the principle of 
settling international difficulties by arbitration rather than by war. 
In this sphere also this ministry advanced the interests of humanity, 
though it drew only disadvantage for itself from its service. 

Gladstone fell from power in 1S74 and the Conservatives came in, 
with Disraeli as prime minister. Disraeli's administration lasted from 
1874 to 1880. It differed as strikingly from Gladstone's ^j^^ 
as his character differed from that of his predecessor. As Disraeli 
Gladstone had busied himself with Irish and domestic ™"^'^*^y 
problems, Disraeli displayed his greatest interest in colonial and foreign 
affairs. He found the situation favorable and the moment opportune 
for impressing upon England the poHtical ideal, long germinating in 
his mind, succinctly called imperialism, that is, the transcendant im- 
portance of breadth of view and vigor of assertion of Eng- jj^pg^j^Ugjn 
land's position as a world power, as an empire, not as an 
insular state. In 1872 he had said: "In my judgment no minister in 
this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of recon- 
structing as much as possible our colonial empire, and of j^j^p^j^tance 
responding to those distant sympathies which may become of the 
the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this ^^"J'^^^'^ed 
land. ' ' This principle Disraeli emphasized in act and speech 
during his sk years of power. It was imperfectly realized under him; 



462 



ENGLAND SINCE 1868 



it was partially reconsidered and revised by Gladstone upon his return 
to power in 1880. But it had definitely received lodgment in the mind 
of England before he left power. It gave a new note to English politics. 
This is Disraeli's historic significance in the annals of British politics. 
He greatly stimulated interest in 
the British colonies. He invoked 
"the sublime instinct of an an-, 
cient people." 

His first conspicuous achieve- 
ment in foreign affairs was the 
purchase of the Suez Canal shares. 
The Suez Canal had been built by 

^ the French against ill- 
Purchase of 

the Suez Concealed English op- 
Canal position . Disraeli 
shares 

had himself declared 
that the undertaking would inevi- 
tably be a failure. Now that the 
canal was built its success was 
speedily apparent. It radically 
changed the conditions of com- 
merce with the East. It shortened 
greatly the distance to the Orient 
by water. Hitherto a considerable part of the commerce with India, 
China, and Australia had been carried on by the long voyage around 
the Cape of Good Hope. Some went by the Red Sea route, but that 
involved transhipment at Alexandria. Now it could all pass through 
the canal. About three-fourths of the tonnage passing through the 
canal was English. It was the direct road to India. There were some 
400,000 shares in the Canal Company. The Khedive of Egypt held a 
large block of these, and the Khedive was nearly bankrupt. Disraeli 
bought, in 1875, his 177,000 shares by telegraph for four million pounds, 
and the fact was announced to a people who had never dreamed of it, 
but who applauded what seemed a brilliant stroke, somehow check- 
mating the French. It was said that the highroad to India was now 
secure. The political significance of this act was that it determined at 
least in principle the future of the relations of England to Egypt, and 
that it seemed to strike the note of imperial self-assertion which was 




BenjaSiin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield 
From a photograph. 



THE IMPERIAL TITLE 463 

Disraeli's chief ambition and which was the most notable characteristic 
of his administration. 

At the same time Disraeli resolved to emphasize the importance of 
India, England's leading colony, in another way. He proposed a new 
and sounding title for the British sovereign. She was to be Empress of 
India. The Opposition denounced this as "cheap" and 
*' tawdry," a vulgar piece of pretension. Was not the title proclaimed 
of King or Queen borne by the sovereigns of England for Empress of 
a thousand years glorious enough? But Disraeli urged it 
as showing "the unanimous determination of the people of the country 
to retain our connection with the Indian Empire. And it will be an 
answer to those mere economists and those diplomatists who announce 
that India is to us only a burden or a danger. By passing this bill then, 
the House will show, in a manner that is unmistakable, that they look 
upon India as one of the most precious possessions of the Crown, and 
their pride that it is a part of her empire and governed by her imperial 
throne." 

The reasoning was weak, but the proposal gave great satisfaction to 
the Queen, and it was enacted into law. On January i, 1877, the Queen's 
assumption of the new title was officially announced in India before an 
assembly of the ruling princes. 

In Europe Disraeli insisted upon carrying out a spirited foreign 
policy. His opportunity came with the reopening of the Eastern Ques- 
tion, or the question of the integrity of Turkey, in 1876. ^^^ ^^^ 
For two years this problem absorbed the interest and atten- of the 
tion of rulers and diplomatists, and England had much to q^^^^^^ 
do with the outcome. This subject may, however, be better 
studied in connection with the general history of the Eastern problem 
in the nineteenth century.^ 

Disraeli, who in 1876 became Lord Beaconsfield, continued in power 
until 1880. The emphasis he put upon imperial and colonial problems 
was to exert a considerable influence upon the rising generation, and 
upon the later history of England. Imperial and colonial have vied 
with Irish questions in dominating the political discussions of England 
during the last thirty years. 

In 1880 the Liberals were restored to power and Gladstone became 
prime minister for the second time. 

1 See Chapter XXXIII. 



464 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

Gladstone's greatest ability lay in internal reform, as his previous 
ministry had shown. This was the field of his inchnation, and, as he 
The Second thought, of the national welfare. Peace, retrenchment, and 
Gladstone reform, the watchwords of his party, now represented the 
l88o'-\*885 programme he wished to follow. But this was not to be. 
While certain great measures of internal improvement 
were passed during the next five years, those years on the whole were 
characterized by the dominance of imperial and colonial questions, with 
attendant wars. Gladstone was forced to busy himself with foreign 
policy far more than in his previous administration. Serious questions 
confronted him in Asia and Africa. These may best be studied, how- 
ever, in the chapter on the British Empire.^ 

Two pieces of domestic legislation of great importance enacted dur- 
ing this ministry merit description, the Irish Land Act of 188 1, and the 
Reform Bills of 1884-85. 

The legislation of Gladstone's preceding ministry had not pacified 
Ireland. Indeed, the Land Act of 1870 had proved no final settlement, 
Failure of ^^^ ^ g^eat disappointment. It had established the prin- 
Land Act of cip|le that the tenant was to be compensated if deprived of 
his farm except for non-payment of rent, and was to be 
compensated, in any case, for all the permanent improvements which 
he had made upon the land. But this was not sufiicient to give the 
tenant any security m his holding. It did not prevent the landlord from 
raising the rent. Then if the peasant would not pay this increased rent 
he must give up his holding. He therefore had no stable tenure. In 
the new Land Act of 1881 Gladstone sought to give the peasant, in addi- 
Act of 1881 ^^°^ ^° ^^^ compensation for improvement previously se- 
cured, a fair rent, a fixed rent, one that is not constantly 
subject to change at the will of the landlord, and freedom of sale, that 
is, the liberty of the peasant to sell his holding to some other peasant. 
These were the ''three F's," which had once represented the demands of 
advanced Irishmen, though they no longer did. Henceforth, the rent 
was to be determined by a court, established for the purpose. Rents, 
Rents to be ^^^e judicially determined, were to be unchangeable for 
judicially fifteen years, during which time the tenant might not be 

evicted except for breaches of covenant, such as non- 
payment, of rent. There was also attached to the bill a provision simi- 

1 Chapter XXVII. 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1884 465 

ar to the one in the preceding measure of 1870, looking toward the 

:reation of a peasant proprietorship. The Government was to loan 

noney to the peasants under certain concUtions, and on easy terms, to 

mable them to buy out the landlords, thus becoming complete owners 

:hemselves. 

The bill passed though it was opposed with unusual bitterness. 

Landowners, believing that it meant a reduction of rents, determined 

lot by themselves but by a court, called it confiscation of 

,,.,,, . Denounced 

Droperty. it was attacked because it established the prin- as confisca- 

:iple that rents were not to be determined, like the price ^^^ °^ 

property 
)f other things, by the law of supply and demand; were 

lot to be what the landlord might demand and the peasant agree to 
3ay, but were to be reasonable and their reasonableness was to be 
iecided by outsiders, judges, having no direct interest at all, that is, in 
ast resort, by the state. The bill was criticised as altering ruthlessly 
:he nature of property in land, as establishing dual ownership. 

Gladstone carried through at this time the third of those great re- 
form acts of the nineteenth century by which England has been trans- 
"ormed from an oligarchy into a democracy. The Reform The Reform 
Bill of 1832 had given the suffrage to the wealthier mem- ^'^^ °^ i^^* 
3ers of the middle class. The Reform Bill of 1867 had taken a long step 
;n the direction of democracy by practically giving the vote to the lower 
middle class and the bulk of the laboring class in the boroughs but it 
did not greatly benefit those living m the country districts. The fran- 
:hise in the boroughs was wider than in the counties. The result was 
that laborers in boroughs had the vote, but agricultural laborers did 
lot. There was apparently no reason for maintainmg this difference. 
Gladstone's bill of 1884 aimed at the abolition of this inequality between 
the two classes of constituencies, by extending the borough ^^^ ^.^j^^ty 
Franchise to the coimties so that the mass of workingmen ^^^^^^^^e 
would have the right to vote whether they lived in town or 
country. The county franchise, previously higher, was to be exactly 
assimilated to the borough franchise. The bill as passed doubled the 
number of county voters, and increased the total number of the electo- 
rate from over three to over five millions. Gladstone's chief argument 
was that this measure would lay the foundations of the government 
broad and deep in the people's will, and "array the people in one solid 
compacted mass around the ancient throne which it has loved so well, 



466 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

and around a constitution now to be more than ever powerful, and 
more than ever free." 

Since 1884 there has been no extension of the suffrage. There are 
many men who have no vote because they are unable to meet any one 
„ . of the various property qualifications that give the vote; 

qualifications for it must be remembered that there is no such thing as 
for voting universal manhood suffrage in England. Only those vote 
who have some one of the kinds of property indicated in the various 
laws of 1832, 1867, and 1884. The present condition of the franchise is 
historical, not rational. Many men have several votes; others have 
none at all. There is a demand for the enfranchisement of all adult 
males; there is a vigorous agitation for woman's suffrage; and the Lib- 
eral party is pledged to the abolition of the practice of plural voting. 
There has been no redistribution of parliamentary seats since 1885. 
There is no periodical adjustment according to population, as in the 
United States after each census. To-day some electoral districts are 
ten, or even fifteen times as large as others. Constituencies range 
from about 13,000 to over 217,000. 

Gladstone's second ministry fell in 1885. There followed a few 
The First months of Conservative control under Lord Salisbury. 

Salisbury But in 1 886 new elections were held and Gladstone came 

inistry back into power again, prime minister for the third 

time. 

He was confronted by the Irish problem in a more acute form than 
ever before. For the Irish were now demanding a far-reaching change 
The Home ^ government. They were demanding Home Rule, that 
Rule is, an Irish Parliament for the management of the internal 

ovemen affairs of Ireland. They had constantly smarted under 
the injury which they felt had been done them by the abolition of their 
former Parliament, which sat in Dublin, and which was abolished by the 
Act of Union of 1800. The feeling for nationality, one of the dominant 
forces of the nineteenth century everywhere, acted upon them with un- 
usual force. They disliked, for historical and sentimental reasons, the 
rule of an English Parliament, and the sense as well as reality of subjec- 
tion to an alien people. They did not wish the separation of Ireland 
from England but they did wish a separate parliament for Irish affairs 
on the ground that the Parliament at Westminster had neither the time 
nor the understanding necessary for the proper consideration of meas- 



THE HOME RULE PARTY 



467 



ures affecting the Irish. The Home Rule party had been slowly grow- 
ing for several years when, in 1879, it came under the leadership of 
Charles Stuart Parnell who, unlike the other great leaders of Irish his- 
tory, such as Grattan and O'Connell, was no orator and was of a cold, 
haughty, distant nature, but of an inflexible will. Under his able 

leadersliip the party increased in 
numbers, in cohesion, in grim de- 
termination. Parnell's object was 
to make it so large that it could 
hold the balance of power in the 

House of Commons. 

T ,^ T-. 1 • '^^^ Home 

In the Parliament Rulers hold 

which met in 1886 ^^ balance 
4^^ u r> ^ °^ power 

the Home Rulers 

were in this position. If they 
united with the Conservatives the 
two combined would have exactly 
the same number of votes as the 
Liberals. As the Conservatives 
would not help them they sided 
with the Liberals. 

Gladstone entered upon his 
third administration February i, 
1886. It was his Gladstone's 
shortest ministry, Third 
lasting less than six "^'^ ^ 
months. It was wholly devoted to 
the question of Ireland. The Irish had plainly indicated their wishes in 
the recent elections in returning a solid body of 85 Home Rulers out of the 
103 members to which Ireland was entitled. Gladstone was enormously 
impressed by this fact, the outcome of the first election held on practically 
a democratic franchise. He had tried in previous legislation to rule the 
Irish according to Irish rather than English ideas, where he considered 
those ideas just. He believed the great blot upon the annals of England 
to be the Irish chapter, written, as it had been, by English arrogance, 
hatred, and unintelligence. Reconciliation had been his Home Rule 
keynote hitherto. Moreover, to him there seemed but or Coercion? 
two alternatives — either further reform along the lines desired by the 




Charles Stewart Parnell 
After the painting by Sydney P. Hall. 



468 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

Irish, or the old, sad story of hard yet unsuccessful coercion. Gladstone 

would have nothing more to do with the latter method. He, there- 

intr duction ^*^^^' r^solved to endeavor to give to Ireland the Home 

of the Home Rule she plainly desired. On the 8th of April, i886, he in- 

Rule Bill troduced the Irish Government Bill, announcing that it 

would be followed by a Land Bill, the two parts of a single scheme 

which could not be separated. 

The bill, thus introduced, provided for an Irish Parliament to sit in 

Dublin, controlling a ministry of its own, and legislating on Irish, as 

distinguished from imperial affairs. A difficulty arose right here. If 

the Irish were to have a legislature of their own for their 
Shall the ^, . , , .,, . . , ^ ,. 

Irish sit own affairs, ought they stiU to sit m the Farhament in 

in West- London, with power there to mix in English and Scotch 

minster? . . 

affairs? On the other hand, if they ceased to have members 

in London, they would have no share in legislating for the Empire as 
a. whole. "This," says Morley, "was from the first, and has ever since 
remained, the Gordian knot." The bill provided that they should be 
excluded from the Parliament at Westminster. On certain topics it was 
further provided that the Irish Parliament should never legislate: ques- 
tions affecting the Crown, the army and navy, foreign and colonial 
affairs; nor could it establish or endow any religion. 

Gladstone did not believe that the Irish diSiculty would be solved 
simply by new political machinery. There was a serious social question 
,Land Pur- not reached by this, the land question, not yet solved to 
chase Bill ^]^g satisfaction of the Irish. He introduced immediately 
a Land Bill, which was to effect a vast transfer of land to the peas- 
ants by purchase from the landlords, and which might perhaps involve 
an expenditure to the state of about 120,000,000 pounds. 

The introduction of these bills, whose passage would mean a radical 
transformation of Ireland, precipitated one of the fiercest struggles 
Opposition in English parliamentary annals. They were Urged as nec- 
to the Bills essary to settle the question once for all on a solid basis, 
as adapted to bring peace and contentment to Ireland, and thus strengthen 
the Union. Otherwise, said those who supported them, England had 
no alternative but coercion, a dreary and dismal failure. On the other 
hand, the strongest opposition arose out of the belief that these bills 
imperiled the very existence of the Union. The exclusion of the Irish 
members from Parliament seemed to many to be the snapping of the 



DEFEAT OF THE HOME RULE BILL 469 

cords that held the countries together. Did not this bill really dismem- 
ber the British Empire? Needless to say, no British statesman could 
urge any measure of that character. Gladstone thought that liis bills 
meant the reconciliation of two peoples estranged for centuries, and 
that reconciliation meant the strengthening rather than the weakening 
of the Empire, that the historic policy of England towards Ireland had 
only resulted in alienation, hatred, the destruction of the spiritual har- 
mony which is essential to real unity. But, said his opponents, to give 
the Irish a parliament of their own, and to exclude them from the Par- 
liament in London, to give them control of their own legislature, their 
own executive, their own judiciary, their own police, must The Union 
lead inevitably to separation. You exclude them from all "^ danger ! 
participation in imperial affairs, thus rendering their patriotism the 
more intensely local. You provide, it is true, that they shall bear a 
part of the burdens of the Empire. Is this proviso worth the paper it 
is written on? Will they not next regard this as a grievance, this taxa- 
tion without representation, and will not the old animosity break out 
anew? You abandon the Protestants of Ireland to the revenge of the 
Catholic majority of the new Parliament. To be sure, you provide for 
toleration in Ireland, but again is this toleration worth the paper it is 
written on? 

Probably the strongest force in opposition to the bill was the opin- 
ion widely held in England of Irishmen, that they were thoroughly 
disloyal to the Empire, that they would delight to use English 
their new autonomy to pay off old scores by aiding the disUke of 
enemies of England, that they were traitors in disguise, 
or undisguised, that they had no regard for property or contract, 
that an era of religious oppression and of confiscation of property 
would be inaugurated by this new agency of a parliament of their 
own. 

The introduction of the Home Rule Bill aroused an amount of bit- 
terness unknown in recent English history. The Conservative party op- 
posed it to a man, and it badly disrupted the Liberal party. Disruption 
Nearly a hundred Liberals withdrew and joined the Con- °^J^J^" 
servatives. These men called themselves Liberal-Union- 
ists, Liberals, but not men who were prepared to jeopardize the Union 
as they held that this measure would do. The result was that the bill 
was beaten by 343 votes to 313. 



470 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

Gladstone dissolved Parliament and appealed to the people. The 

^^ ^ question was vehemently discussed before the voters. 

The Con- 
servatives The result was disastrous to the Gladstonian Home Rulers. 

returned to ^ majority of over a hundred was rolled up against Glad- 
power . / T . 
stone s policy. 

The consequences of this introduction of the Home Rule proposi- 
tion into British politics were momentous. One was the impotence, for 
most of the next twenty years, of the Liberal party. A considerable 
fraction of it, on the whole the least democratic, went over to the Con- 
servatives and the result was the creation of the Unionist Coalition which 
for the next twenty years, with a single interruption, was to rule England. 
The Unionists had a new policy, that of Imperialism. They had pre- 
served the Union, they thought, by defeating Home Rule. They now 
went further and became the champions of imperial expansion. On the 
other hand the Liberal party, now that its more aristocratic elements 
had left it, became more pronouncedly democratic. The line of division 
between the two parties became sharper. But for the present the Lib- 
eral party was in the hopeless minority. 

On the fall of Gladstone, Lord Salisbury came into power, head 
of a Conservative or Unionist Government. The Irish question con- 
fronted it as it had confronted Gladstone's ministry. As 
The Second . , , . . , -^ 

Salisbury it would not for a moment consider any measure grant- 

^^^l^^otxn\ i^g self-government to the Irish, it was compelled to 

(1886—1892) 1 • 1 1 1 1 • 1 

govern them m the old way, by coercion, by force, by 
relentless suppression of liberties freely enjoyed in England. But 
the policy of this ministry was not simply negative. Holding that the 
The policy only serious Irish grievance was the land problem and that, 
of coercion j£ ^:^\^ were once completely solved, then this new-fangled 
demand for a political reform would drop away, the Conservatives 
adopted boldly the policy of purchase that had been timidly applied 
in Gladstone's Land Acts of 1870 and 1881. The idea was that if only 
the Irish could get full ownership of their land, could get the absentee 
and oppressive landlords out of the way, then they would be happy 
and prosperous and would no longer care for such political nostrums 
as Home Rule. 

The land purchase clauses of Gladstone's acts had had no great ef- 
fect as the state had offered to advance only two-thirds of the purchase 
price. The Conservatives now provided that the state should advance 



THE SECOND SALISBURY MINISTRY 471 

the whole of it, the peasants repaying the state by installments covering 
a long number of years. The Government buys the land, sells it to the 
peasant, who that instant becomes its legal owner, and who pays for it 
gradually. He actually pays less in this way each year -^^^^ 
than he formerly paid for rent, and in the end he has his Purchase 
holding unencumbered. This bill was passed in 189 1, and in *^* 
five years some 35,000 tenants were thus enabled to purchase their hold- 
ings under its provisions. The system was extended much further in 
later years, particularly by the Land Act of 1903, which set aside a 
practically unlimited amount of money for the purpose. From 1903 to 
1908 there were about 160,000 purchasers. Under this act, which simply 
increased the inducements to the landlords to sell, Ireland is becoming a 
country of small freeholders. The earlier principle of dual ownership 
recognized in Gladstone's land legislation of 1881 has given way com- 
pletely to this new principle of individual ownership, but no longer in- 
dividual ownership by the great landowners but now by the peasants, the 
inhabitants of Ireland. The economic prosperity of Ireland has steadily 
increased in recent years. 

This ministry passed other bills of a distinctly liberal character; 
among them an act absolutely prohibiting the employment of children 
under ten, an act designed to reduce the oppression of the sweat-shop 
by limiting the labor of women to twelve hours a day, with social 
an hour and a half for meals, an act making education legislation 
free, and a small allotment act intended to create a class of peasant pro- 
prietors in England. These measures were supported by all parties. 
They were important as mdicating that social legislation was hkely to 
be in the coming years more important than poHtical legislation, which 
has proved to be the case. They also show that the Conservative party 
was changing in character, and was willing to assume a leading part in 
social reform. 

In respect to another item of internal policy, the Salisbury ministry 
took a stand which has been decisive ever since. In 1889 it secured an 
immense increase of the navy. Seventy ships were to be increase of 
added at an expense of 21,500,000 pounds during the next ^^ °^'y 
seven years. Lord Salisbury laid it down as a principle that the British 
navy ought to be equal to any other two navies of the world combined. 

In foreign affairs the most important work of this ministry lay in it* 
share in the partition of Africa, which will be described elsewhere. 



472 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

The general elections of 1892 resulted in the return to power of the 

Liberals, supported by the Irish Home Rulers, and Gladstone, at the 

age of eighty- two, became for the fourth time prime min- 

Gladstone ister, a record unparalleled in English history. As he him- 

Ministry, gelf said, the one single tie that still bound him to public 

(1892-1894) ... 

life was his mterest in securing Home Rule for Ireland be- 
fore his end. It followed necessarily from the nature of the case that 
public attention was immediately concentrated anew on that question. 
The Second Early in 1893 Gladstone introduced his second Home 
Home Rule Rule Bill. The opposition to it was exceedingly bitter 
and prolonged. Very few new arguments were brought for- 
ward on either side. Party spirit ran riot. Gladstone expressed with 
all his eloquence his faith in the Irish people, his belief that the only 
alternative to his policy was coercion, and that coercion would be for- 
ever unsuccessful, his conviction that it was the duty of England to 
atone for six centuries of misrule. 

After eighty-two days of discussion, marked by scenes of great dis- 
order, members on one occasion coming to blows to the great damage of 
Passed by decorous parliamentary traditions, the bill was carried by 
the Com- ^^ majority of 34 (301 to 267). A week later it was de- 
defeated by feated in the House of Lords by 419 to 41, or a majority 
the Lords ^f more than ten to one. The bill was dead. 

Gladstone's fourth ministry was balked successfully at every turn 
by the House of Lords, which, under the able leadership of Lord Salis- 
bury, recovered an actual power it had not possessed since 1832. In 
Resignation 1 894 Gladstone resigned his office, thus bringing to a close 
of Gladstone q^q q^ ^j^g ^lost remarkable political careers known to Eng- 
lish history. His last speech in Parliament was a vigorous attack upon 
the House of Lords. In his opinion, that House had become the great 
obstacle to progress. "The issue which is raised between a delibera- 
tive assembly, elected by the votes of more than 6,000,000 people," 
and an hereditary body, "is a controversy which, when once raised, 
must go forward to an issue." This speech was his last in an assembly 
where his first had been delivered sixty-one years before. Gladstone 
died four years later, and was buried in Westminster Abbey (1898). 

In the elections of 1895 the Unionists secured a majority of a hun- 
dred and fifty. They were to remain uninterruptedly in power until 
December, 1905. 



THE GROWTH OF IMPERIALISM 473 

Lord Salisbury became prime minister for the third time. He re- 
mained such until 1902, when he withdrew from public life, being suc- 
ceeded by his nephew, Arthur James Balfour. There was, rj.^ ^^. ^ 
, , ' The Third 

however, no change of party. Lord Salisbury had an im- Salisbury 

mense majority m the House of Commons. His ministry ^'""'^^^y 
contained several very able men. He himself assumed the Foreign Office, 
Joseph Chamberlain the Colonial Office, Balfour the leadership of the 
House of Commons. The withdrawal of Gladstone and the divisions 
in the Liberal party reduced that party to a position of ineffective 
opposition. The Irish question sank into the background as the Union- 
ists, resolutely opposed to the policy of an independent parliament in 
Ireland, declined absolutely to consider Home Rule. They did on the 
other hand pass certain acts beneficial to Ireland, land purchase acts, 
on a vast scale and measures extending somewhat the strictly local self- 
government in Ireland. Much social and labor legislation was also, 
enacted. 

The commanding question of this period was to be that of imperial- 
ism, and the central figure was Joseph Chamberlain, a man remarkable 
for vigor and audacity, and the most popular member of the cabinet. 
Chamberlain, who had made his reputation as an advanced Liberal,, 
an advocate of radical social and economic reforms, now stood forth as 
the spokesman of imperiaUsm. His office, that of Colonial Secretary, 
gave him excellent opportvmities to emphasize the importance of the 
colonies to the mother, country , the desirability of drawing them closer 
together, of promoting imperial federation. 

The sktieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession occurring in 
1897 was the occasion of a remarkable demonstration of the loyalty of 
the colonies to the Empire, as well as of the universal respect ^^^^ 
and affection in which the sovereign was held. This dia- victoria's 
mond jubilee was an imposing demonstration of the strength '^1^°^^ 
of the sentiment of union that bound the various sections 
of the Empire together, of the advantages accruing to each from the 
connection with the others, of the pride of power. Advantage was taken, 
too, of the presence of the prime ministers of the various colonies in 
London to discuss methods of drawing the various parts of the Empire 
more closely together. All these circumstances gave expression to that 
" imperialism" which was becoming an increasing factor in British 
politics. 



474 



ENGLAND SINCE 1868 



A period of great activity in foreign and colonial affairs began almost 
immediately after the inauguration of the new Unionist ministry. It 
_. . was shown in the recovery of the Soudan by Lord Kitch- 

South ener, but the most important chapter in this activity con- 

^^""* cerned the 

conditions in South Africa 
which led, in 1899, to the 
Boer War, and which had 
important consequences. 
This will better be de- 
scribed elsewhere.^ This 
war, lasting from 1899 to 
1902, much longer than 
had been anticipated, ab- 
sorbed the attention of 
England until its success- 
ful termination. Internal 
legislation was of slight 
importance. During the 
Death of war Queen 

Queen Victoria died, 

V^*^*^"* January 22, 

1 90 1, after a reign of over 
sixty-three years, the 
longest in British history, 
and then exceeded else- 
where only by the seventy- 
one years' reign of Louis 

XIV of France. She had proved during her entire reign, which began 
in 1837, a model constitutional monarch, subordinating her will to that 
of the people, as expressed by the ministry and Parliament. '' She passed 
away," said Balfour in the House of Commons, "without an enemy in 
Reign of ^^^ world, for even those who loved not England loved 

her." The reign of Edward VII (1901-1910), then in his 
sixty-second year, began. 

When the South African war was over Parliament turned its atten- 
tion to domestic affairs. In 1902 it passed an Education Act which 

1 See pp. 497-502. 




Queen Victoria, at the Age of Seventy-Eight 
From the painting by Baron von Angeli, at Windsor 
Castle. 



Edward VII 
(1901-1910) 



TARIFF REFORM 475 

superseded that of Gladstone's first ministry, the Forster Act of 1870, 
already described. It abolished the school boards estab- Education 
lished by that law. It admitted the principle of the support ^^^ °^ ^^^ 
of denominational schools out of taxes. In such schools the head teacher 
must belong to the denomination concerned and a majority of the mana- 
gers of those schools would also be members of the denomination. 

The bill gave great offense to Dissenters and believers in secular 
education. It authorized taxation for the advantage of a denomination 
of which multitudes of taxpayers were not members. It was held to 
be a measure for increasing the power of the Church of England, consid- 
ered one of the bulwarks of Conservatism. 

The opposition to this law was intense. Thousands refused to pay 
their taxes, and their property was, therefore, sold by public authority 
to meet the taxes. Many were imprisoned. There were over 70,000 
summonses to court. The agitation thus aroused was one of the great 
causes for the crushing defeat of the Conservative party in 1905. Yet 
the law of 1902 was put into force and is at this moment the law of Eng- 
land, the Liberals having failed in 1906 in an attempt to pass an educa- 
tion bill of their own to supersede it. The educational system remains 
one of the contentious problems of English politics. 

The popularity of the Unionist ministry began to wane after the 
close of the South African war. Much of its legislation was denounced 
as class legislation designed to bolster up the Conservative tariff re- 
party, not to serve the interest of all England. Moreover form pro- 
a new issue was now injected into British politics which 
divided the Unionists, as Home Rule had divided the Liberals. Cham- 
berlain came forward with a proposition for tariff reform as a means 
of binding the Empire more closely together. He urged that England 
impose certain tariff duties against the outside world, at the same 
time exempting her colonies from their operation. He called this policy 
"colonial preference." It would be that but it would also be the aban- 
donment of the free trade policy of Great Britain and the adoption of 
the protective system. 

As the discussion of this proposal developed it became apparent that 
Englishmen had not yet lost their faith in free trade as still greatly to 
their advantage, if not absolutely essential to their welfare. The new 
controversy disrupted the Unionist party and reunited the Liberals. 

The result of this increasing disaffection was shown in the crushmg 



476 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

defeat of the Unionists and the inauguration of a very different policy 
Th Liberal under the Liberals. Since December, 1905 the Liberal 
party in party has been in power, first under the premiership of 

power gjj. Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and since his death early 

in 1908, under that of Herbert Asquith. This party won in the Gen- 
eral Elections of 1906 the largest majority ever obtained since 1832. 

An important achievement of this administration was the passage in 
1908 of the Old Age Pensions Act, which marks a long step forward in 
Old A e ^^® extension of state activity. It grants, under certain 

Pensions slight restrictions, pensions to all persons of a certain age 

^^ and of a small income. Denounced as paternalistic, as 

socialistic, as sure to undermine the thrift and the sense of responsibil- 
ity of the laborers of Great Britain, it was urged as a reasonable and 
proper recognition of the value of the services to the country of the work- 
ing classes, services as truly to be rewarded as those of army and navy 
and administration. The act provides that persons seventy years of 
age whose income does not exceed twenty-five guineas a year shall 
receive a weekly pension of five shillings, that those with larger incomes 
shall receive proportionately smaller amounts, down to the minimum of 
one shilling a week. Those whose income exceeds thirty guineas and ten 
shillings a year receive no pensions. It was estimated by the prime minis- 
ter that the initial burden to the state would be about seven and a half 
million pounds, an amount that would necessarily increase in later years. 
The'post office is used as the distributing agent. This law went into force 
on January i, 1909. On that day over half a million men and women went 
to the nearest post office and drew their first pensions of from one to five 
shillings, and on every Friday henceforth as long as they live they may do 
the same. It was noticed that these men and women accepted their pen- 
sions not as a form of charity of poor relief, but as an honorable reward. 
The statistics of those claiming under this law are instructive and sob- 
ering. In the county of London one person in every one hundred and 
seventeen was a claimant; in England and Wales one in eighty-six; in 
Scotland one in sixty-seven; in Ireland one in twenty-one. 

The Unionist party had been in control from 1895 to 1905. Its 
The Unionist ^^^^^ emphasis had been put upon problems of imperialism, 
party from Social legislation had slipped into the background. But 
1895 to 1905 ^-^^ conduct and course of the Boer War, the great advent- 
ure in imperialism, had not increased the reputation for statesmanship 



THE POWER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS 477 

or the popularity of the Conservatives, and their domestic legislation 
aiming, as was held, at the strengthening of the EstabHshed Church and 
the liquor trade, two stout and constant defenders of the party, exposed 
them to severe attack as aristocratic, as believers in privileged and vested 
interests, as hostile to the development of the democratic forces in the 
national life. 

Now that the Liberals were in power they turned energetically to 
undo the class legislation of the previous ministry, to remove the ob- 
stacles to the development of truly popular government. Democratic 

The new Liberal party was more radical than the old Lib- poUcy of the 

Liberal 
eral party of the time of the first Home Rule Bill as the party since 

more conservative Liberals had left it then and had gone ^^^^ 
over to the opposition. Moreover there now appeared in Parliament 
a party more radical still, the Labor party, with some fifty members. 
Radical social and labor legislation was now attempted. That the 
existing social system weighed with unjust severity upon the masses 
was recognized by the ministry. "Property" said Asquith, "must 
be associated in the mind of the masses of the people, with the ideas 
of reason and justice." 

But when the Liberals attempted to carry out their fresh and pro- 
gressive programme they immediately confronted a most formidable 
obstacle. They passed through the House of Commons The Liber- 
an Education bill, to remedy the evils of the Education ^^ ^^^''^^^ 
Act of 1902, enacted m the interests chiefly of the Estab- House of 
lished Church; also a Licensing biU designed to penalize the ^"^'^^ 
liquor trade which Conservative legislation had greatly favored; a bill 
abolishing plural voting, which gave such undue weight to the prop- 
ertied classes, enabling rich men to cast several votes at a time when 
many poor men did not have even a single vote. The obstacle en- 
countered at every step was the House of Lords, which threw out these 
bills and stood right athwart the path of the Liberal party, firmly re- 
solved not to let any ultra-democratic measures pass, firmly resolved 
also to maintain all the ground the Conservatives had won in the pre- 
vious administrations. A serious political and constitutional problem 
thus arose which had to be settled before the Liberals ^ constitu- 
could use their immense popular majority, as shown in tiond^ 
the House of Commons, for the enactment of Liberal pol- 
icies. The House of Lords, which was always ruled by the Conserva- 



478 



ENGLAND SINCE 1868 



tives, and which was not, being an hereditary body, subject to direct 
popular control, now asserted its power frequently and, in the opinion 
of the Liberals, flagrantly, by rejecting peremptorily the more dis- 
tinctive Liberal measures. The Lords, encouraged by their easy suc- 
cesses in blocking the Commons, 
blithely took another step forward, 
a step which, as events were to 
prove, was to precede a resounding 
fall. The Lords in 1909 rejected 
the budget, a far more serious act 
of defiance of the popular chamber 
than any of these others had been, 
and a most conspicuous revelation 
of the spirit of confidence which 
the Lords had in their power, now 
being so variously and systemati- 
cally asserted. 

In 1909 Lloyd George, Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, intro- 
The budget duced the budget. He 
of 1909 announced correctly 

that two new lines of heavy 
expenditure, the payment of old 
age pensions and the rapid enlargement of the navy, necessitated new 
and additional taxation. The new taxes which he proposed would bear 
mainly on the wealthy classes. The income tax was to be increased. In 
addition there was to be a special or super- tax on incomes of over £5,000. 
A distinction was to be made between earned and unearned incomes — 
the former being the result of the labor of the individual, the latter 
being the income from investments, representing no direct personal 
activity on the part of the individual receiving them. Unearned in- 
comes were to be taxed higher than earned. Inheritance taxes were 
to be graded more sharply and to vary decidedly according to the 
amount involved. New taxes on the land of various kinds were also 
to be levied. 

This budget aroused the most vehement opposition of the class of 
landowners, capitalists, bankers, persons of large property interests, 
persons who lived on the money they had inherited, on their investments. 




David Lloyd George 



REJECTION OF THE BUDGET 



479 



They denounced the bill as socialistic, as revolutionary, as in short, 
odious class legislation directed against the rich, as con- Opposition to 
fiscatory, as destructive of all just property rights. *^® budget 

The budget passed the House of Commons by a large majority. It 
then went to the House of Lords. For a long time it had not been sup- 
posed that the Lords ^he Lords 
had any right to re- reject the 
ject money bills, as " ^® 
they were an hereditary and not 
a representative body. They, 
however, now asserted that they 
had that right, although they had 
not exercised it within the memory 
of men. After a few days of de- 
bate they rejected the budget by a 
vote of 350 to 75 (Nov. 30, 1909). 
At once was precipitated an 
exciting and momentous political 
and constitutional The act 

struggle. The Lib- declared un- 
°" , constitutional 

erals, blocked agam by the 

by the hereditary Commons 

chamber, consisting solely of the 

aristocracy of the land, and blocked 

this time in a field which had long 

been considered very particularly 

to be reserved for the House of 

Commons, indignantly picked up the gauntlet which the Lords had 

thrown down. The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly, 349 to 

134, that the action of the Lords was "a. breach of the Constitution 

and a usurpation of the rights of the House of Commons." ^squith 

Asquith declared in a crowded House that "the House defines the 

1SSU6 

would be unworthy of its past and of those traditions of 
which it is the custodian and the trustee," if it allowed any time to 
pass without showing that it would not brook this usurpation. He de- 
clared that the "power of the purse" belonged to the Commons alone. 
The very principle of representative government was at stake. For if 
the Lords possessed the right they had assumed the situation was ex- 




Herbert Asquith 



48o ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

actly this: that when the voters elected a majority of Conservatives to 
the Commons then the Conservatives would control the legislation; 
that, when they elected a majority of Liberals, the Conservatives would 
still control by being able to block all legislation they dishked by the 
veto of the House of Lords, always and permanently a body adhering to 
the Conservative party. An hereditary body, not subject to the people, 
could veto the people's wishes as expressed by the body that was repre- 
sentative, the House of Commons. In other words the aristocratic ele- 
ment in the state was really more powerful than the democratic, the 
house representing a class was more powerful than the house represent- 
ing the people. 

The question of the budget and the question of the proper position 
and the future of the Upper Chamber were thus linked together. As 
these questions were of exceptional gravity the ministry resolved to seek 
the opinion of the voters. Parliament was dissolved and a new election 
was ordered. The campaign was one of extreme bitterness. 
Election, expressing itself in numerous deeds of violence. The elec- 

January, ^jqj^^ ]^ei(j j^ January, 1910, resulted in giving the Unionists 

a hundred more votes than they had had in the previous 
Parliament. Yet despite this gain the Liberals would have a majority 
of over a hundred in the new House of Commons if the Labor party and 
the Irish Horrie Rulers supported them, which they did. 

In the new Parliament the budget which had been thrown out the 
previous year was introduced again, without serious change. Again it 
The budget passed the House of Commons and went to the Lords, 
passed That House yielded this time and passed the budget with 

all its so-called revolutionary and socialistic provisions. 

The Liberals now turned their attention to this question of the 
"Lords' Veto," or of the position proper for an hereditary, aristocratic 
The ques- chamber in a nation that pretended to be democratic, as 
tion of the did England. The issue stated nearly twenty years before 
or s Veto ^^ Gladstone in his last speech in Parliament had now 
arrived at the crucial stage. What should be the relations between a 
deliberative assembly elected by the votes of more than six million 
voters and an hereditary body? The question was vehemently discussed 
inside Parliament and outside. Various suggestions for reform of the 
House of Lords were made by the members of that House itself, justly 
apprehensive for their future. The death of the popular King Edward 



THE PARLIAMENT BILL 



481 



VII (May 6, 1910), and the accession of George V, occurring in the 
midst of this passionate campaign, somewhat sobered the combatants, 
though only temporarily. Attempts were made to see if some compro- 
imise regarding the future of the House of Lords might not be worked 
out by the two parties. But the attempts were futile, the issue being 
too deep and too far-reaching. 




Interior of the House of Commons 



The ministry, wishing the opinion of the people on this new question, 
dissolved the House of Commons again and ordered new elections, 
the second within a single year (December, 1910). The ^j^^ elections 
result was that the parties came back each with practi- of December, 
cally the same number of members as before. The Gov- 
ernment's majority was undiminished. 

The Asquith ministry now passed through the House of Commons a 
Parliament Bill restricting the power of the House of Lords The House 
in several important particulars and providing that the f^^^^^J"^ 
House of Commons should in last resort have its way in any Parliament 
controversy with the other chamber. This bill passed the ^^ 
House of Commons by a large majority. How could it be got through 



482 ENGLAND SINCE 1868 

the House of Lords? Would the Lords be likely to vote in favor of 
the recognition of their inferiority to the other House, would they con- 
sent to this withdrawal from them of powers they had hitherto exercised, 
would they acquiesce in this altered and reduced situation at the hands 
of a chamber whose measures they had been freely blocking for several 
years? Of course they would not if they could help it. But there is one 
way in which the opposition of the House of Lords can be overcome, 
no matter however overwhelming. The King can create new peers — as 
many as he likes — enough to overcome the majority against the meas- 
The Parlia- ure in question. This supreme weapon the King, which of 
ment Bill course in fact meant the Asquith ministry, was now pre- 

the^House pared to use. Asquith announced that he had the consent 
of Lords of George V to create enough peers to secure the passage of 

the bUl in case it were necessary. The threat was sufficient. The Lords 
on August i8, 191 1, passed the Parliament Act which so profoundly 
altered their own status, power, and prestige. This measure establishes 
Provisions new processes of law-making. If the Lords withhold their 
of the Bill assent from a money bill, that is, any bill raising taxes or 
making appropriations, for more than one month after it has passed the 
House of Commons, the bill may be presented for the King's signature 
and on receiving it becomes law without the consent of the Lords. If 
a bill other than a money bill is passed by the Commons in three success- 
ive sessions, whether of the same Parliament or not, and is rejected by 
the Lords, it may on a third rejection by them be presented for the 
King's assent and on receiving that assent will become a law, notwith- 
standing the fact that the House of Lords has not consented to the bill 
— provided that two years have elapsed between the second reading of 
the bilHn the first of those sessions and the date on which it passes the 
Commons for the third time. 

This Parliament or Veto Bill contained another important provi- 
sion, substituting five years for seven as the maximum duration of a 
Parliament; that is, members of the Commons are henceforth chosen for 
five, not seven years. Their term was thus reduced. 

Thus the veto power of the House of Lords is gone entirely for all 
Th Lords' financial legislation, and for all other legislation its veto is 
Veto de- merely suspensive. The Commons can have their way in 

stroyed ^^yQ end. They may be delayed two years. 

The way was now cleared for the enactment of certain legislation 



THE HOME RULE BILL 483 

desired by the Liberal party which could not secure the approval of the 
House of Lords. It was possible finally to pass a Home ^j^^ „ 
Rule Bill, to the principle of which the Liberal party had Rule quTs^ 
been committed for a quarter of a century. On April n, *'°° ^^^ 
191 2, Asquith introduced the third Home Rule Bill, granting Ire- 




Interior of the House of Lords 

land a Parliament of her own, consisting of a Senate of forty mem- 
bers and a House of Commons of 164. If the two houses ^, , . ^ 

The third 

should disagree, then they were to sit and vote together. Home Rule 

On certain subiects the Irish Parliament should not have ^'^ mtro- 

•" duced 

the right to legislate; on peace or war, naval or military 

affairs, treaties, currency, foreign commerce. It could not establish or 

endow any religion or impose any religious disabihties. The Irish were 

to be represented in the Parliament in London by forty-two members 

instead of the previous number, 103. 

This measure was passionately opposed by the Conservative party 

and particularly by the Ulster party, Ulster being that province of Ire- 



484 



ENGLAND SINCE 1868 




The Cabinet Room 
At No. 10 Downing Street. 

land in which the Protestants are strong. They went so far in their 
Opposition opposition as to threaten civil war, in case Ulster were not 
of Ulster exempted from the operation of this law. During the next 

two years the battle raged about this point, in conferences between 



THE ULSTER PARTY 485 

political leaders, in discussions in Parliament and the press. Attempts 
at compromise failed as the Home Rule party would not consent to the 
exemption of a quarter of Ireland from the jurisdiction of the proposed 
Irish Parliament. 

The bill was, however, passed and was immediately vetoed by the 
House of Lords. At the next session it was passed again and again 
vetoed by the Lords. Finally on May 25, 1914, it was 
passed a third time by the House of Commons by a vote of passed by 
351 to 274, a majority of 77. The bill was later rejected *^^ House of 
by the Lords. It might now become a law without their 
consent, in conformity with the Parliament Act of 191 1. Only the 
formal assent of the King was necessary. 

But the ministry was so impressed with the vehemence and the de- 
termination of the "Ulster party," which went so far as to organize an 
army and establish a sort of provisional government, that it decided 
to continue discussions in order to see whether some compromise might 
not be arranged. These discussions were interrupted by the outbreak 
of the European War. 

Meanwhile a bill disestablishing the Anglican Church in Wales 
had gone through the same process; had thrice been 
passed by the Commons and rejected by the Lords. Like Ushment of 
the Home Rule bill, it only awaited the signature of the J^^^^^Yj^^^^^ 
sovereign. 

Finally that signature was given to both bills on September 18, 1914, 
but Parliament passed on that same day a bill suspending Both laws 
these laws from operation until the close of the war. suspended 

England now had far more serious things to consider and she wisely 
swept the deck clean of contentious domestic matters until a more con- 
venient season. Whether the Home Rule Act when finally put into 
force will be accompanied with amendments which will pacify the Pro- 
testants of Ulster, remains, of course, to be seen. 

REFERENCES 

Gladstone's Personality: McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. I, Chap. 
XXIV; Morley, Gladstone, Book II, Chap. VI; Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biog- 
raphy, pp. 400-480. 

Gladstone's First Ministry: McCarthy, Vol. II, Chaps. LVII-LXII. 

Disraeli's Ministry: McCarthy, Vol. II, Chaps. LXIII-LXVI; Bryce, pp. 1-68. 



4S6 EXGLAXD SINCE 1SC>$ 

The Irish LAXDQtxsTiox. McCarthy, Vol. Ill, pp. 57-82; Johnston and Spencer, 
IrcJiind's SUiry, pp. 324-35S. 

The Home Rule Mo\xmext: McCarthy. Vol. III. Chap. X. pp. 171-19S; Cam- 
bridge ifodrrn H}St<->r\\ \'o\. XII. pp. 65-90. 

Cabinet System of Goxtirnment: Bagehot, English Constiiution. Chap. II; 
Lowell, The GoTvrnmaii of Etigl^ind, Chaps. I. II. III. XXII and XXIII: Moran, The 
Thce>r\ and Praiii<r of the English Goz>ernmenJ; Robinson and Beard, Readings in 
Modern European Hiskyry, Vol. II, pp. 258-266. 

EyGL.\XD IX THE Tx\"EXTiETH CEXTfRY: Larson, Short History of England, pp. 
617-639; Cross. Hist^y of Engliind, Chap. LVII; Hayes, Brilish Soeiiil Polilies; Ogg, 
Socinl Progress in ConUmporary Europe, pp. 265-279; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, pp. 52-64. 

British Foreign" Policy Senxe 1880: Se\-mour, The Diplomaiie Background of 
the War. Chaps. VI and VII. Schmitt, Germ<iny and England. Chaps. I, VI, VII, 
IX. 



CHAPTER XXVn 

THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

We have thus far concerned ourselves with the history of the Euro- 
pean continent. But one of the most remarkable features of the nine- 
teenth century was the reaching out of Europe for the j^^ expan- 
conquest of the world. It was not only a century of nation sion of 
building but also of empire building on a colossal scale, ^^°^^ 
a century of European emigration and colonization, a century during 
which the white race seized whatever regions of the earth ^he growth 

remained still imappropriated or were too weak to pre- of colonial 

_,, .^ . . , empires 

serve themselves inviolate. Thus magnificent imperial 

claims were staked out by various powers either for immediate or for 
ultimate use. 

Many w^ere the causes of this new Wandering of the Peoples. One 
was the extraordinary increase during the century of the population of 
Europe — perhaps a hundred and seventy-five millions in Causes of 
1815, more than four hundred and fifty millions a century t^ ^""^ 
later. This is unquestionably one of the most important facts in 
modem history, the fundamental cause of the colossal emigration. .An- 
other cause was the transformation of the economic system, the mar\-el- 
ous increase m the power of production, which impeUed the producers 
to ransack the world for new markets and new sources of raw material. 
And another and potent cause was the spectacle of the British Empire 
which touched the imagination or aroused the envy of other peoples, 
who therefore feU to unitating, within the range of the possible. An 
examination of the history and characteristics of that Empire is essen- 
tial to an understanding of modern Europe. 

At the close of the eighteenth century England possessed in the New 
Worid, the region of the St. Lawrence, New Bruns^s-ick, The British^^ 
Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and a ^j^^f^f'^e^ 
large, vague region knowm as the Hudson Bay territory; eighteenth 
Jamaica, and other West Indian islands; in Australia, a "° "^ _ 
strip of the eastern coast; in India, the Bengal or lower Ganges region, 

487 



488 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Bombay, and strips along the eastern and western coasts. The most 
important feature of her colonial policy had been her elimination of 
France as a rival, from whom she had taken in the Seven Years' War 
almost all of her North American and East Indian possessions. This 
Empire she increased during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 
largely at the expense of France and Holland, the ally of France. Thus 
she acquired the Cape of Good Hope, Guiana in South America, Tobago, 
Trinidad, and St. Lucia, Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, and the large 
island of Ceylon. In the Mediterranean she acquired Malta. She also 
obtained Helgoland, and the protectorate of the Ionian Islands. 

Since 1815 her Empire has been vastly augumented by a long series 
Vast of wars, and by the natural advance of her colonists over 

growth of countries contiguous to the early settlements, as in Can- 

the British , , . ° . ^_ _ . -^ ,. . . 

Empire ada and Australia. Her Empire lies m every quarter of 

since 1815 the globe. 

INDIA 

The acquisition of India, a world in itself, for the British Crown was 
the work of a private commercial organization, .the East India Company, 
which was founded in the sixteenth century and given a monopoly of 
the trade with India. This company established trading stations in 
various parts of that peninsula. Coming into conflict with the French, 
and mixing in the quarrels of the native princes, it succeeded in win- 
ning direct control of large sections, and indirect control of others by 
assuming protectorates over certain of the princes, who allied them- 
selves with the English and were left on their thrones. This commercial 
company became invested with the government of these acquisitions, 
under the provisions of laws passed by the English Parliament at vari- 
ous times. In the nineteenth century the area of British control stead- 
ily widened, until it became complete. Its progress was 
Overthrow . ■ , i ^ -, ■, , , r, i 

of the immensely furthered by the overthrow, after a long and 

Mahratta intermittent war, of the Mahratta confederacy, a loose 

confederacy . . ^ ,. . , . . , , 

union of Indian princes dominating central and western 

India. This confederacy was finally conquered in a war which lasted 

from i8i6toi8i8, when a large part of its territories were added directly 

to the English possessions, and other parts were left under their native 

rulers who, however, were brought effectively under English control by 

being obliged to conform to English policy, to accept English Residents 

at their courts, whose advice they were practically compelled to follow, 



Colonial 



WestLongituce from Oreenwich, 

POSSiSSlOJsS 



of the 

EUROPEiVK PO^'ERtS 
IN 1815. 



j^i^ydJwe^d. 




Brifi.'sfv 
Spanish 
Danish. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY 489 

and by putting their native armies under British direction. Such is the 
condition of many of them at the present day. 

The EngUsh also advanced to the north and northwest, from Ben- 
gal. One of their most important annexations was that of the Punjab, 
an immense territory on the Indus, taken as a result of ^nnexati 
two difficult wars (1845 to 1849), and the Oudh province, of the 
one of the richest sections of India, lying between the "°^^^ 
Punjab and Bengal, annexed in 1856. 

The steady march of English conquest aroused a bitter feeling of 
hostility to the English, which came to a head in the famous Sepoy 
Mutiny of 1857, which for a time threatened the complete overthrow 
of the British in northern India. There were various causes of this in- 
surrection: the bitter discontent of the deposed princes and their ad- 
herents, who sent out emissaries to stir up hatred against the intruders; 
the fear of other princes that their turn might come; the introduction 
of railways and telegraphs, represented by the priests as an attack upon 
their religion; rumors that the English intended to force Christianity 
upon the people and destroy their religion and civilization; the attempts 
to stamp out the custom of female infanticide; a prophecy of the sooth- 
sayers that English domination was destined to end on the hundredth 
anniversary of its beginning at the battle of Plassey (1757). 

English domination rested on military force, and in the main upon 
the native Indian soldiers. There were m India in 1857 about 4S,°oo 
English troops, and over 250,000 native soldiers, the Sepoys. In that 
year a mutiny broke out among the Sepoys of the Ganges The Indian 
provmces in northern India. The immediate occasion was ^"tiny (1857) 
the introduction of a new rifle, or rather of the paper-covered cartridges 
for it, which were lubricated, it was alleged, with the fat of cows and 
pigs. One end of the cartridges had to be bitten by the teeth before 
being put into the barrel. This outraged the religious feelings of the 
Hindus, who regarded the cow as a sacred animal, and of the Moham- 
medans; who regarded the pig as unclean, the lard as contaminating. 
The English tried to dispel the rumor by publishing a formula of the 
grease used, and by ordering officers to assure the soldiers that these in- 
gredients were not employed, but their efforts were unavaUing. A cav- 
alry regiment refused to receive the new munitions, some of its members 
were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, their comrades began an 
insurrection to save them, and the insurrection spread swiftly. The 



490 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

native soldiery seized Delhi, the ancient capital of the Moguls, Luck- 
now, Cawnpore, and other places, massacring with barbarous cruelty 
large numbers of men, women, and children. Shortly all northern India 
seemed lost. 

The English took a fearful and decisive revenge. Many of the Sepoys 
remained loyal, European troops were rushed to the scene of the dis- 
turbance, and the insurrection was crushed. Beside themselves with rage 
and terrified by the narrowness of the escape, the English meted out fe- 
rocious punishment. Hundreds were shot in cold blood, without trial, 
and thousands were hanged after trials that were a travesty of justice. 
Many were fastened to the mouths of cannon and blown to pieces. 

Since this mutiny of 1857 no attempts have been made to over- 
throw English control. One important consequence was that in 1858 

the government of India was transferred to the Crown from 
Change in ° . 1.111 1 1 • r 

the govern- the private company which had conducted it for a cen- 

ment of tury. It passed under the direct authority .of England. 

In 1876, as we have seen, India was declared an empire, 
and Queen Victoria assumed the title Empress of India, January i, 
1877. This fact was officially announced in India by Lord Lytton, the 
Viceroy, to an imposing assembly of the ruling princes. 

An Empire it surely is, with its three hundred million inhabitants. 
A Viceroy stands at the head of the government. There is a Secretary 
The vast ^^^ India in the British Ministry. The government is 

population largely carried on by the highly organized Civil Service 
of India, and is in the hands of about eleven hundred Eng- 
lishmen. About 220 millions of people are under the direct control of 
Great Britain; about 67 millions live in native states under native rul- 
ers, the "Protected Princes of India," of whom there were, a few years 
ago, nearly seven hundred. For all practical purposes, however, these 
princes must follow the advice of English officials, or Residents, stationed 
in their capitals. 

Not only did England complete her control of India in the nine- 
teenth century, but she added countries round about India, 
Annexation 

of Burma Burma toward the east, and, toward the west, Baluchistan, 

^^ , . a part of which was annexed outright, and the remainder 

Baluchistan ^ . . 

brought under a protectorate. She also imposed a kind of 

protectorate upon Afghanistan, as a result of two Afghan wars (1839-42 

and 1878-80). 



THE DURHAM MISSION 491 

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 

In 1815, as already stated, Great Britain possessed, in North America, 
six colonies: Upper Canada, Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova 
Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland; and the Hudson 
Bay Company's territories stretched to the north and northwest with 
undefined boundaries. The total population of these colonies was 
about 460,000. The colonies were entirely separate from each other. 
Each had its own government, and its relations were not with the 
others, but with England. The oldest and most populous was Lower 
Canada, which included Montreal and Quebec and the St. Lawrence 
valley. This was the French colony conquered by England in 1763. 
Its population was French-speaking, and Roman Catholic in religion. 

The two most important of these colonies were Lower Canada, 
largely French, and Upper Canada, entirely English. Each had re- 
ceived a constitution in 1791, but in neither colony did the ^jpp^j. g^^j 
constitution work well and the fundamental reason was Lower 
that neither the people nor their legislatures had any con- 
trol over the executi\'e. The Governor, who could practically veto all 
legislation, considered himself responsible primarily to the English 
Government, not to the 'people of the province. England had not yet 
learned the secret of successful management of colonies despite the fact 
that the lesson of the American Revolution and the loss of the thirteen 
colonies a half a century earlier was sufficiently plain. It took a second 
revolt to point the moral and adorn the tale. In 1837 disaffection had 
reached such a stage that revolutionary movements broke out in both 
Upper and Lower Canada. These were easily suppressed The rebel- 
by the Canadian authorities without help from England, "°° °* ^^^^ 
but the grievances of the colonists still remained. 

The English Government, thoroughly alarmed at the danger of the 
loss of another empire, adopted the part of discretion and sent out to 
Canada a commissioner to study the grievances of the The Durham 
colonists. The man chosen was Lord Durham, whose Mission 
part in the reform of 1832 had been brilliant. Durham was in Canada 
five months. The report in which he analyzed the causes of the rebel- 
lion and suggested changes in policy entitles him to the rank of the 
greatest colonial statesman in British history. In a word he adopted 
the dictum of Fox who had said "the only method of retaining distant 



492 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

colonies with advantage, is to enable them to govern themselves." He 
proposed the introduction of the cabinet system of government as 
worked out in England. This gives the popular house of the legislature 
control over the executive. 

Durham's recommendations were not immediately followed, as to 
many Englishmen they seemed to render the colonies independent. 
Ten years later, however, this principle of ministerial re- 
responsibUity sponsibility was adopted by Lord Elgin (1847), the Gover- 
introduced ^101 of Canada and the son-in-law of Durham. His example 
was followed by his successors and gradually became es- 
tablished usage. The custom spread rapidly to the other colonies of 
Great Britain which were of English stock and were therefore con- 
sidered capable of self-government. This is the cement that holds the 
British Empire together. For self-government has brought with it 
contentment. 

Lord Durham had also suggested a federation of all the North Ameri- 
can colonies. This was brought about in 1867 when the British North 
The founding America Act, which had been drawn up in Canada and 
of the which expressed Canadian sentiment, was passed without 

Canada, change by the English Parliament. By this act Upper and 

1867 Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were 

joined into a confederation called the Dominion of Canada. There 
was to be a central or federal parliament sitting in Ottawa. There were 
also to be local or provincial legislatures in each province to legislate 
for local affairs. Questions affecting the whole Dominion were reserved 
for the Dominion Parliament. 

The central or Dominion Parliament was to consist of a Senate and 
a House of Commons. The Senate was to be composed of seventy mem- 
bers nominated for life by the Governor- General, himself 

ine "^ 

Dominion appointed by the monarch, and representing the Crown. 
Parliament ^j^^ House of Commons was to be elected by the people. 
In some respects the example of the English Government was followed 
in the constitution, in others that of the United States. 

Though the Dominion began with only four provinces provision 
G wth f ^^^ made for the possible admission of others. Mani- 
the Domin- toba was admitted in 1870, British Columbia in 1871, 
■'°° Prince Edward Island in 1873. 

In 1846, by the settlement of the Oregon dispute, the line dividing 



AUSTRALIA 493 

the English possessions from the United States was extended to the Paci- 
fic Ocean, and in 1869 the Dominion acquired by pinchase (£300,000) 
the vast territories belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, out of which 
the great provmces of Alberta and Saskatchewan have been carved and 
admitted into the union (1905). The Dominion now includes all of 
British North America except the island of Newfoundland, which has 
steadily refused to join. It thus extends from ocean to ocean. Except 
for the fact that she receives a Governor- General from England and that 
she possesses no treaty powers, Canada is practically independent. She 
manages her own affairs, and even imposes tariffs which are disadvan- 
tageous to the mother country. That she has imperial as well as local 
patriotism, however, was shown strikingly in her support of England in 
the South African war. She sent Canadian regiments thither at her 
own expense to cooperate in an enterprise not closely connected with 
her own fortunes. The same spirit, the same willingness to make costly 
sacrifices, were to be shown, on a larger scale, in the war of 1914. 

The founding of the Canadian union in 1867 rendered possible the 
construction of a great transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, 

built between 1881 and 188c;. This has in turn reacted ^^ 

. The 

upon the Dominion, binding the different provinces together Canadian 

and contributing to the remarkable development of the ^^^^^ 

west. Another transcontinental railway has recently been 

built farther to the north. Canada is connected by steamship Hnes with 

Europe and with Japan and Australia. Her population has increased 

from less than five hundred thousand in 181 5 to more than seven million. 

Her prosperity has grown immensely, and her economic life is becoming 

more varied. Largely an agricultural and timber producing country, her 

manufactures are now developing under the stimulus of protective tariffs, 

and her vast mineral resources are in process of rapid development. 

AUSTRALIA 

In the Southern Hemisphere, too, a new empire was created by Great 
Britain during the nineeenth century, an empire nearly as extensive 
territorially as the United States or Canada, about three-fourths as 
large as Europe, and inhabited almost entirely by a population of English 
descent. 

No systematic exploration of this southern continent, Terra Aus- 
tralis, was undertaken until toward the close of the eighteenth century, 



494 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

but certain parts had been sighted or traced much earlier by Spanish, 
Early Portuguese, and particularly by Dutch navigators. Among 

explorations ^}^g jg^g^-^ Tasman is to be mentioned, who in 1642 explored 
the southeastern portion, though he did not discover that the land 
which was later to bear his name was an island, a fact not known, indeed, 
for a century and a 'half. He discovered the islands to the east of Aus- 
tralia, and gave to them a Dutch name, New Zealand. The Dutch 
called the Terra Australis New Holland, claiming it by right of discov- 
ery. But they made no attempt to occupy it. The attention of the 
The voyages English was first directed thither by the famous Captain 
of Captain Cook, who made three voyages to this region between 1768 
°° and 1779. Cook sailed around New Zealand, and then 

along the eastern coast of this New Holland. He put into a certain har- 
bor, which was forthwith named Botany Bay, so varied was the vege- 
tation on the shores. Sailing up the eastern coast, he claimed it all for 
George III, and called it New South Wales because it reminded him 
of the Welsh coast. Seventeen years, however, went by before any 
settlement was made. 

At first AustraUa was considered by English statesmen a good place 
to which to send criminals, and it was as a convict colony that the new 
A convict empire began. The first expedition for the colonization of 

colony i-jjg country saUed from England in May, 1787 with 750 

convicts on board, and reached Botany Bay in January, 1788. Here the 
first settlement was made, and to it was given the name of the colonial 
secretary of the day, Sydney. For many years fresh cargoes of convicts 
were sent out, who, on the expiration of their sentences, received lands. 
Free settlers came too, led to emigrate by various periods of economic 
depression at home, by promises of land and food, and by an increasing 
knowledge of the adaptability of the new continent to agriculture, and 
particularly to sheep raising. By 1820 the population was not far from 
40,000. During the first thirty years the government was military in 
character. 

The free settlers were strongly opposed to having Australia regarded 
as a prison for English convicts, and after 1840 the system was gradually 
The discov- abolished. Australia was at first mainly a pastoral country, 
ery of gold producing wool and hides. But, in 185 1 and 1852, rich 
deposits of gold were found, rivaled only by those discovered a little 
earher in California. A tremendous immigration ensued. The popula- 



THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH 495 

tion of the colony of Victoria (cut off from New South Wales) increased 
from 70,000 to more than 300,000 in five years. Australia has ever since 
remained one of the great gold producing countries of the world. 

Thus there gradually grew up six colonies. New South Wales, Queens- 
land, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and the neighbor- 
ing island of Tasmania. These were gradually invested ^j^^ gj^^ 
with self-government, parliaments, and responsible minis- Australian 
tries in the fashion worked out in Canada. The population ^^^"'"^^ 
increased steadily, and by the end of the century numbered about four 
millions. 

The great political event in the history of these colonies was their 
imion into a confederation at the close of the century. Up to that time 
the colonies had been legally unconnected with each other, and their 
only form of union was the loose one under the British Reasons for 
Crown. For a long time there was discussion as to the their 
advisability of binding them more closely together. Vari- 
ous reasons contributed to convince the Australians of the advantages 
of federation; the desirability of uniform legislation concerning commer- 
cial and industrial matters, railway regulation, navigation, irrigation, 
and tariffs. Moreover the desire for nationality, which has accom- 
plished such remarkable changes in Europe in the nine- p .• ^ 
teenth century, was also active here. An Australian the Austral- 
patriotism had grown up. Australians desired to make ^^^^{^^ 
their country the dominant authority in the Southern 
Hemisphere. They longed for a larger outlook than that given by the 
life of the separate colonies, and thus both reason and sentiment 
combined toward the same end, a close union, th^ creation of another 
"colonial nation." 

Union was finally achieved after ten years of earnest discussion 
(1890-1900). The various experiments in federation were carefully 
studied, particularly the constitutions of the United States and Canada. 
The draft of the constitution was worked over by several conventions, 
by the ministers and the governments of the various colonies, and was 
finally submitted to the people for ratification. Ratification being se- 
cured, the constitution was then passed through the British Pariiament 
under the title of "The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act" 
(19005. The constitution was the work of the Australians. The part 
taken by England was simply one of acceptance. Though Parliament 



496 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 




THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND 497 

made certain suggestions of detail, it did not insist upon them in the case 
of Australian opposition. 

The constitution established a federation consisting of the sL\ col- 
onies which were henceforth to be called states, not provinces as in the 
case of Canada. It created a federal Parliament of two The Federal 
houses, a Senate consisting of six senators from each state, Parliament 
and a House of Representatives apportioned among the several states 
according to population. The powers given to the Federal Government 
were carefully defined. The new system was inaugurated January i, 
1901- 

NEW ZE.\LAND 

Not included in the new commonwealth is an important group of 
islands of Australasia called New Zealand, situated 1,200 miles east of 
Australia. England began to have some connection with these islands 
shortly after 1815, but it was not until 1839 that they were formally 
annexed to the British Empire. In 1854 New Zealand was given 
responsible government, and in 1865 was entirely separated from New 
South Wales and made a separate colony. Emigration was method- 
ically encouraged. New Zealand was never a convict colony. Popula- 
tion increased and it gradually became the most democratic colony of 
the Empire. In 1907 the designation of the colony was changed to the 
Dominion of New Zealand. 

New Zealand consists of two main islands with many smaller ones. 
It is about a fourth larger than Great Britain and has a population of 
about 1,000,000, of whom about 50,000 are aborigines, the New 
Maoris. Its capital is Wellington, with a population of Zealand 
about 70,000. Auckland is another important city. New Zealand is an 
Agricultural and grazing country, and also possesses rich mineral deposits, 
including gold. 

New Zealand is of great interest to the world of to-day because of 
its experiments in advanced social reform, legislation concerning labor 
and capital, landowning and commerce. State control has been ex- 
tended over more branches of industry than has been the case in any 
other country. 

The Government owns and operates the railways. The roads are 
run, not for profit, but for service to the people. As rap- Advanced 

idly as profits exceed three per cent passenger and freight social 

, • 1 r 1 i^i * legislation 

rates are reduced. Comprehensive and successful attempts 



498 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

are made by very low rates to induce the people in congested districts 
to live in the country. Workmen going in and out travel about three 
miles for a cent. Children in the primary grades in schools are carried 
free, and those in higher grades at very low fares. 

The Government also owns and operates the telegraphs and tele- 
phones and conducts postal savings banks. Life insurance is largely in 
its hands. It has a fire and accident insurance department. In 1903 
it began the operation of some state coal mines. Its land legislation is 
remarkable. Its main purpose is to prevent the land from being monop- 
olized by a few, and to enable the people to become landholders. In 
1892 progressive taxation on the large estates was adopted, and in 1896 
the sale of such estates to the government was made compulsory, and 
thus extensive areas have come under government ownership. The 
state transfers them under various forms of tenure to the landless and 
System of working classes. The system of taxation, based on the 
taxation principle of graduation, higher rates for larger incomes, 

properties, and inheritances, is designed to break up or prevent monop- 
oly and to favor the small proprietor or producer. 

In industrial and labor legislation New Zealand has also made radi- 
cal experiments. Arbitration in labor disputes is compulsory if either 
side invokes it, and the decision is binding, "^actory laws are stringent, 
aiming particularly at the protection of women, the elimination of 
"sweating." In stores the Saturday half-holiday is universal. The 
Government has a Labor Department whose head is a member of the 
Old Age cabinet. Its first duty is to find work for the unemployed, 

Pensions ^^d its great effort is to get the people out of the cities 

into the country. There is an Old Age Pension Law, enacted in 1898 
and amended in 1905, providing pensions of about a hundred and twenty- 
five dollars for all men and women after the age of sixty-five whose in- 
come is less than five dollars a week. 

All this governmental activity rests on a democratic basis. There 
are no property qualifications for voting, and women have the suffrage 
as well as men. The referendum has been adopted. 

The Australian colony of Victoria has enacted much legislation re- 
sembhng that described in the case of New Zealand. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF AN AFRICAN EMPIRE 499 

BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA 

As an incident in the wars against France and her ally and depen- 
dent, Holland, England seized the Dutch possession in South Africa, 
Cape Colony. This colony she retained in 1814, together 

•1 ■ -r^ ■ • -r-,* 7. England 

with certam Dutcli possessions m South America, paying acquires 
sbc million pounds as compensation. This was the begin- ^^f® 
ning of English expansion into Africa, which was to attain 
remarkable proportions before the close of the century. The population 
at the time England took possession consisted of about 27,000 people 
of European descent, mostly Dutch, and of about' 30,000 African and 
Malay slaves owned by the Dutch, and about 17,000 Hottentots. Im- 
migration of Englishmen began forthwith. 

Friction between the Dutch (called Boers, i.e., peasants), and the 
English was not slow in developing. The forms of local government to 
which the Boers were accustomed were abolished and new Faction 

ones established. English was made the sole language used with the 

. . 1 , 1 Boers 

in the courts. The Boers, irritated by these measures, 

were rendered indignant by the abolition of slavery in 1834. They 
did not consider slavery wrong. Moreover, they felt defrauded of 
their property as the compensation given was inadequate — about 
three million pounds — little more than a third of what they con- 
sidered their slaves were worth. 

The Boers resolved to leave the colony and to settle in the interior 
where they could lit^e unmolested by the intruders. This migration or 
Great Trek began in 1836, and continued for several years. The Great 
About 10,000 Boers thus withdrew from Cape Colony. '^^^^ 
Rude carts drawn by several pairs of oxen transported their families 
and their possessions into the wilderness. The result was the founding 
of two independent Boer republics to the north of Cape Colony, namely 
the Orange Free State and the Transvaal or South African Republic. 
A most checquered career has been theirs. The Orange Free State 
was declared annexed to the British Empire in 1848 but it rebelled 
and its independence was recognized by Great Britain in 1854. From 
that time untU 1899 it pursued a peaceful career, its independence not 

infringed upon. . 

The independence of the Transvaal was also recognized, in 1852. 
But twenty-five years later, in 1877, under the strongly imperialistic 



500 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



ministry of Lord Beaconsfield, it was abruptly declared annexed to 
-pi^g the British Empire, on the ground that its independence 

Transvaal ^^g a menace to the peace of England's other South 
the British African possessions. The Boers' hatred of the English 
Empire naturally expressed itself and they took up arms in the 

defense of their independence. 








Majuba Hill 

In 1880 Lord Beaconsfield was overthrown and Gladstone came in- 
to power. Gladstone had denounced the annexation, and was con- 
vinced that a mistake had been made which must be rectified. He 
was negotiating with the Boer leaders, hoping to reach, by peaceful 
means, a solution that would be satisfactory to both sides, when his 
problem was made unmensely more difficult by the Boers themselves, 
who, in December, 1880, rose in revolt and defeated a small detach- 
Majuba ment of British troops at Majuba Hill, February 27, 1881. 

Hill In a military sense this so-called battle of Majuba Hill 

was an insignificant affair, but its effects upon Englishmen and Boers 
were tremendous and far-reaching. Gladstone, who had already been 
negotiating with a view to restoring the independence of the Trans- 
vaal, which he considered had been unjustly overthrown, did not think 



THE ENGLISH AND THE TRANSVAAL 501 

it right to reverse his policy because of a mere skirmish, however humili- 
ating. His ministry therefore went its way, not believing that it should 
be deflected from an act of justice and conciliation merely 
because of a military misfortune of no importance in itself. Gladstone* * 
The independence of the Transvaal was formally recog- administra- 
nized with the restriction that it could not make treaties 
with foreign countries without the approval of Great Britain and with 
the proviso, which was destined to gain tremendous importance later, 
that "white men were to have full liberty to reside in any part of the 
republic, to trade in it, and to be liable to the same taxes only as those 
exacted from citizens of the republic." 

Gladstone's action was severely criticised by Englishmen who did 
not believe in retiring, leaving a defeat imavenged. They denounced 
the policy of the ministry as hostile to the welfare of the South African 
colonies and damaging to the prestige of the Empire. The Boers on the 
other hand considered that they had won their independence by arms, 
by the humiliation of the traditional enemy, and were accordingly elated. 
In holding this opinion they were injuring themselves by self-deception 
and by the idea that what they had once done they could do again, and 
they were angering the British by keeping alive the memory of Majuba 
Hill. The phrase just quoted, concerning immigration, contained the 
germ of future trouble, which in the end was to result in the violent 
overthrow of the republic, for a momentous change in the character of 
the population was impending. 

The South African Republic was entirely inhabited by Boers, a people 
exclusively interested in agriculture and grazing, solid, sturdy, religious, 
freedom-loving, but, in the modern sense, unprogressive, ill- ^^^ ^^^^^ 
educated, suspicious of foreigners, and particularly of Eng- 
lishmen. The peace and contentment of this rural people were disturbed 
by the discovery, in 1884, that gold in immense quantities lay hidden 
in their mountains, the Rand. Immediately a great influx of miners 
and speculators began. These were chiefly Englishmen. In the heart 
of the mining district the city of Johannesburg grew rapidly, The 
numbering in a few years over 100,000 inhabitants, a city 
of foreigners. Troubles quickly arose between the native Boers and the 
aggressive, energetic Uitlanders or foreigners. 

The Uitlanders gave wide publicity to their grievances. Great ob- 
stacles were put in the way of their naturalization; they were given no 



502 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



share in the government, not even the right to vote. Yet in parts of the 
Transvaal they, were more numerous than the natives, and bore the 
larger share of taxation. In addition they were forced to render mili- 
tary service, which, in their opinion, implied citizenship. They looked 
to the British Government to push their demand for reforms. The Boer 
Government was undoubtedly an oligarchy, but the Boers felt that it 
was only by refusing the suffrage to the unwelcome intruders that they 
_,. could keep control of their own state, which at the cost of 

Jameson much hardship they had created in the wilderness. In 

^* 1895 occurred an event which deeply embittered them, 

the Jameson Raid — an invasion of the Transvaal by a few hundred 

troopers under Dr. Jameson, the 
administrator of Rhodesia, with 
the apparent purpose of over- 
throwing the Boer Government. 
The raiders were easily captured 
by the Boers, who, with great 
magnanimity, handed them over 
to England. This indefensible 
attack and the fact that the guilty 
were only lightly punished in Eng- 
land, and that the man whom all 
Boers held responsible as the arch- 
conspirator, Cecil Rhodes, was 
shielded by the British Govern- 
ment, entered like iron into the 
souls of the Boers and only hard- 
ened their resistance to the de- 
mands of the Uitlanders. These 
demands were refused and the 
grievances of the Uitlanders, who now outnumbered the natives perhaps 
two to one, continued. Friction steadily increased. The British charged 
that the Boers were aiming at nothing less than the ultimate expulsion 
of the English from South Africa, the Boers charged that the British 
were aiming at the extinction of the two Boer republics. There was no 
spirit of conciliation in either government. 

Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary, was arrogant and 
insolent. Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal, was obstinate and 




Joseph Chamberlain 



THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 503 

ill-informed. Ultimately in October, 1899 the Boers declared war upon 
Great Britain. The Orange Free State, no party to the The South 
quarrel, threw in its lot with its sister Boer republic. African War 

This war was lightly entered upon by both sides. Each grossly 
underestimated both the resources and the spirit of the other. The 
English Government had made no preparation at all adequate, appar- 




Paul Kruger 



Lord Roberts 



ently not believing that in the end this petty state would dare oppose 
the mighty British Empire. The Boers, on the other hand, had been 
long preparing for a conflict, and knew that the number of British troops 
in South Africa was small, totally insufficient to put down their resist- 
ance. Moreover, for years they had deceived themselves with a gross 
exaggeration of the significance of Majuba Hill as a victory over the 
British. Each side beUeved that the war would be short, and would 
result in its favor. 

The war, which they supposed would be over in a few months, lasted 
for nearly three years. England suffered at the outset many humiliating 



S04 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

reverses. The war was not characterized by great battles, but by many 
sieges at first, and then by guerilla fighting and elaborate, systematic, 
and difficult conquest of the country. It was fought with great bravery 
on both sides. For the English, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener were 
the leaders, and of the Boers several greatly distinguished themselves, ob- 
taining world-wide reputations, Christian de Wet, Louis Botha, Delarey. 
The English won in the end by sheer force of numbers and peace 
Victory of was finally concluded on June i, 1902. The Transvaal 
the English q^j^^ ^]^q Orange Free State lost their independence, and 
became colonies of the British Empire. Otherwise the terms offered 
Annexation by the conquerors were liberal. Generous money grants 

of the Trans- ^^^ loans Were to be made by England to enable the 

vaal and the . . . . 

Orange Boers to begin again in their sadly devastated land. 

Free State Their language was to be respected wherever possible. 

The work of reconciliation has proceeded with remarkable rapidity 
since the. close of the war. Responsible government, that is, self-govern- 
ment, was granted to the Transvaal Colony in 1906 and to the Orange 
River Colony in 1907. This liberal conduct of the Enghsh Government 
had the most happy consequences, as was shown very convincingly 
by the spontaneity and the strength of the movement for closer union, 
which culminated in 1909 in the creation of a new "colonial nation" 
within the British Empire. In 1908 a convention was held in which 
the four colonies were represented. The outcome of its deliberations, 
which lasted several months, was the draft of a constitution for the 
South African Union. This was then submitted to the colonies for 
approval and, by June, 1909, had been ratified by them all. The con- 
stitution was in the form of a statute to be enacted by the British 
Parliament. It became law September 20, 1909. 

The South African Union was the work of the South Africans 
themselves, the former enemies, Boers and British, harmoniously coop- 
The South erating. The central government consists of a Governor- 
African General appointed by the Crown; an Executive Council; 
^"^°° a Senate and a House of Assembly. Both Dutch and Eng- 
lish are official languages and enjoy equal privileges. Difficulty was 
experienced in selecting the capital, so intense was the rivalry of dif- 
ferent cities. The result was a compromise. Pretoria was chosen as the 
seat of the executive branch of the government, Cape Town as the seat 
of the legislative branch. 



IMPERIAL FEDERATION 505 

The creation of the South African Union is the most recent triumph 
of the spirit of nationahty which has so greatly transformed the world 
since 1815. The new commonwealth has a population of about 1,150,000 
whites and more than 6,000,000 people of non-European descent. Pro- 
vision has been made for the ultimate admission of Rhodesia into the 
Union. 

IMPERL\L FEDERATION 

At the opening of the twentieth century Great Britain possesses an 
empire far more extensive and far more populous than any the world 
has ever seen, covering about thirteen millions of square j. . 
miles, if Egypt and the Soudan be included, with a total flung British 
population of over four hundred and twenty millions. ™^"^® 
This Empire is scattered everywhere, in Asia, Africa, Australasia, the 
two Americas, and the islands of the seven seas. The population 
includes a motley host of peoples. Only fifty-four million are English- 
speaking, and of these about forty-two million live in Great Britain. 
Most of the colonies are self-supporting. They present every form of 
government, military, autocratic, representative, democratic. The sea 
alone binds the Empire. England's throne is on the moxmtain wave 
in a literal as well as in a metaphorical sense. Dominance of the 
oceans is essential that she may keep open her communications with 
her far;flung colonies. It is no accident that England is the greatest 
sea-power of the world, and intends to remain such. She regards this 
as the very vital principle of her imperial existence. 

A noteworthy feature of the British Empire, as already sufficiently 
indicated, is the practically unlimited self-government enjoyed by 
several of the colonies, those in which the English stock predominates, 
Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. This policy is in con- 
trast to that pursued by the French and German governments, which 
rule their colonies directly from Paris and Berlin. But this system 
does not apply to the greatest of them all, India, nor to a multitude 
of smaller possessions. 

A question much and earnestly discussed during the last twenty- 
five years is that of Imperial Federation. May not some machinery be 
developed, some method be found, whereby the vast em- -phe problem 
pire may be more closely consolidated, and for certain pur- °^^]^PJ:^j^ 
poses act as a single state? If so, its power will be greatly 
augmented, and the world will witness the most stupendous achievement 



5o6 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

in the art of government recorded in its history. The creation of such a 
Greater Britain has seized, in recent years, the imagination of many 
thoughtful statesmen. That the War of 1914 will contribute to the solu- 
tion of this problem seems a reasonable expectation. For that war has 
shown the existence of an intense imperial patriotism among Canadians, 
Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and apparently even 
Indians, all rushing instinctively to support the mother country in her 
hour of need, all evidently willing to give the last full measure of devo- 
tion to a cause which they regard as common to them all. So powerful 
a spirit may well find a way of embodying and crystallizing itself in 
permanent political institutions. The sense of unity, indisputably re- 
vealed, may well be the harbinger of a coming organization adapted to 
preserve and foster that sense and to develop it more richly still. 

REFERENCES 

A Century of Empire: Pollard, History of England (Home University Library), 
pp. 199-225; Cheyney, Short History of England, pp. 649-653, 666-678. 

The Indian Mutiny: McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. II, Chaps. 
XXXII-XXXV; Beard, Introduction to the English Historians, pp. 638-644. 

British Expansion in India: Woodward, The Expansion of the British Empire, 
pp. 312-330; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, Chap. XVI, pp. 457-499. 

Canada: McCarthy, Vol. I, Chap. Ill; Woodward, pp. 249-261; Bourinot, 
Canada under British Rule. 

Australia: Woodward, pp. 262-274; Beard, pp. 645-662; Bryce, Studies in 
History aitd Jurisprudence (Constitution of Australia) ; Jenks, History of the A ustrala- 
sian Colonies. 

South Africa: Woodward, pp. 269-285; Bright, History of England, Vol. V, pp. 
234r-266; Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 99-182. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE PARTITION OF AFRICA 

Lying almost within sight of Europe and forming the southern boun- 
dary of her great inland sea is the immense continent, three times the 
size of Europe, whose real nature was revealed only in the ^^^.j^^ .. 
last quarter of the nineteenth century. In some respects the times the size 
seat of very ancient history, in most its history is just begin- °^ ^^rope 
ning. In Egypt a rich and advanced civilization appeared in very early 
times along the lower valley of the Nile. Yet only after thousands of 
years and only in our own day have the sources and the upper course 
of that famous river been discovered. Along the northern coasts arose 
the civilization and state of Carthage, rich, mysterious, and redoubtable, 
for a while the powerful rival of Rome, succumbing to the latter only 
after severe and memorable struggles. The ancient world The period 
knew therefore the northern shores of Africa. The rest °^ discovery 
was practically unknown. In the fifteenth century came the great 
series of geographical discoveries, which immensely widened the known 
boundaries of the world. Among other things they revealed the hitherto 
unknown outline and magnitude of the continent. But its great inner 
mass remained as before, unexplored, and so it remained until well into 
the nineteenth century. 

In 3815 the situation was as follows: the Turkish Em^pire extended 
along the whole northern coast to Morocco, that is, the Sultan was nomi- 
nally sovereign of Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, and Algeria, situation 
Morocco was independent under its own sultan. Along ^ ^^^^ 
the western coasts were scattered settlements, or rather stations, of 
England, France, Denmark, Holland, Spain, and Portugal. Portugal 
had certain claims on the eastern coast, opposite Madagascar. England 
had just acquired the Dutch Cape Colony whence, as we have seen, her 
expansion into a great South African power has proceeded. The inte- 
rior of the continent was unknown, and was of interest only to 
geographers. 

For sixty years after 1815, progress in the appropriation of Africa by 

507 



5o8 THE PARTITION OF AFRICA 

Europe was slow. The most important annexation was that of Al- 
The French geria by France between 1830 and 1847. In the south, 
conquest of England was spreading out, and the Boers were founding 
^^^^^ their two republics. 

European annexation waited upon exploration. Africa was the 
"Dark Continent," and untU the darkness was lifted it was not coveted. 
About the middle of the century the darkness began to disappear. Ex- 
plorers penetrated farther and farther into the interior, traversing the 
continent in various directions, opening a chapter of geographical dis- 
covery of absorbing interest. It is impossible within our limits to do 
more than allude to the wonderful work participated in by many in- 
trepid explorers. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Portuguese, Dutch, Germans, 
and Belgians. A few incidents only can be mentioned. 

It was natural that Europeans should be curious about the sources 
of the Nile, a river famous since the dawn of history, but whose source 
The sources remained enveloped in obscurity. In 1858 one source was 
of the Nile found by Speke, an English explorer, to consist of a great 
lake south of the equator, to which the name Victoria Nyanza was given. 
Sbc years later another Englishman, Sir Samuel Baker, discovered 
another lake, also a source, and named it Albert Nyanza. 

Two names particularly stand out in this record of African explora- 
tion, Livingstone and Stanley. David Livingstone, a Scotch mission- 
David ary and traveler, began his African career in 1840, and 
Livingstone continued it until his death in 1873. He traced the course 
of the Zambesi River, of the upper Congo, and the region round about 
Lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa. He crossed Africa from sea to sea. 
He opened up a new country to the world. His explorations caught the 
attention of Europe, and when, on one of his journeys, Europe thought 
that he was lost or dead, and an expedition was sent out to find him, 
that expedition riveted the attention of Europe as no other in African 
history had done. It was under the direction of Henry M. Stanley, 
sent out by the New York Herald. Stanley's story of how 
he found Livingstone was read with the greatest interest in 
Europe, and heightened the desire, already widespread, for more knowl- 
edge about the great continent. Livingstone, whose name is the most 
important in the history of African exploration, died in 1873. His body 
was borne with all honor to England and given the burial of a national 
hero in Westminster Abbey. 



STANLEY'S EXPLORATIONS 509 

By this time not only was the scientific curiosity of Europe thoroughly 
aroused, but missionary zeal saw a new field for activity. Thus Stan- 
ley's journey across Africa, from 1874 to 1878, was followed 
in Europe with an attention unparalleled in the history of expbrltions 
modern explorations. Stanley explored the equatorial lake °^ ^^^ 
region, making important additions to knowledge. His °^^° 
great work was, however, his exploration of the Congo River system. 
Little had been known of this river save its lower course as it approached 
the sea. Stanley proved that it was one of the largest rivers in the 
world, that its length was more than three thousand miles, that it was 
fed by an enormous number of tributaries, that it drained an area of 
over 1,300,000 square miles, that in the volume of its waters it was only 
exceeded by the Amazon. 

Thus, by 1880, the scientific enthusiasm and curiosity, the missionary 
and philanthropic zeal of Europeans, the hatred of slave hunters who 
plied their trade in the interior, had solved the great mystery of Africa. 
The map showed rivers and lakes where previously all had been blank. 

Upon discovery quickly followed appropriation. France entered upon 
her protectorate of Tunis in 1881, England upon her "occupation" of 
Egypt in 18S2. This was a signal for a general scramble. A feverish 
period of partition succeeded the long, slow one of discov- ^fi-i^a 
ery. European powers swept down upon this continent appropriated 
lying at their ver}^ door, hitherto neglected and despised, ^ ^°^ 
and carved it up among themselves. This they did without recourse to 
war by a series of treaties among themselves, defining the boimdaries of 
their claims. Africa became an annex of Europe. Out of this rush for 
territories the great powers, England, France, and Germany, naturally 
emerged with the largest acquisitions, but Portugal and Italy each 
secured a share. The situation and relative extent of these may best be 
appreciated by an examination of the map. Most of the treaties by 
which this division was affected were made between 1884 and 1890. 

One feature of this appropriation of Africa by Europe was the foun- 
dation of the Congo Free State. This was the work of the second King 
of Belgium, Leopold II, a man who was greatly interested The Congo 
in the exploration of that continent. After, the discoveries ^^^^ S*^*® 
of Livingstone, and the early ones of Stanley, he called a conference of 
the powers in 1876. As a result of its deliberations an International 
African Association was established, which was to have its seat in Brus- 



5IO THE PARTITION OF AFRICA 

* 
sels, and whose aim was to be the exploration and civilization of central 

Africa. Each nation wishing to cooperate was to collect funds for the 

common object. 

In 1879 Stanley was sent out to carry on the work he had already 
begun. Hitherto an explorer he now became, in addition, an organizer 
and state builder. 

During the next four or five years, 1879-84, he made hundreds of 
treaties with native chiefs and founded many stations in the Congo 
basin. Nominally an emissary of an international association, his 
expenses were largely borne by King Leopold II. 

Portugal now put forth extensive claims to much of this Congo 
region on the ground of previous discovery. To adjust these claims and 
The Berlin other matters a general conference was held in Berlin, in 
Conference 1884-5, attended by all the states of Europe, with the ex- 
ception of Switzerland, and also by the United States. The conference 
recognized the existence as an independent power of the Congo Free 
State, with an extensive area, most of the Congo basin. It was evi- 
dently its understanding that this was to be a neutral and inter- 
national state. Trade in it was to be open to all nations on equal 
terms, the rivers were to be free to all, and only such dues were to be 
levied as should be required to provide for the necessities of commerce. 
No trade monopolies were to be granted. The conference, however, 
provided no machinery for the enforcement of its decrees. Those de- 
crees have remained unfulfilled. The state quickly ceased to be inter- 
national, monopolies have been granted, trade in the Congo has not 
been free to all. 

The new state became practically Belgian because the King of Bel- 
gium was the only one to show much practical interest in the project. 
In 1885, Leopold II assumed the position of sovereign, declaring that 
the connection of the Congo Free State and Belgium should be merely 
personal, he being the ruler of both. This and later changes in the 
The Congo status of the Congo have either been formally recognized 

Free State qj- acquiesced in by the powers. This international state 
declared a . 

Belgian finally in 1908 was converted outright into a Belgian col- 
colony Qjjy subject, not to the personal rule of the King, but to 
ParHament. 



ENGLISH INTERVENTION IN EGYPT 511 

EGYPT 

Egypt, a seat of ancient civilization, was conquered by the Turks 
and became a part of the Turkish Empire in 15 17. It remained nomi- 
nally such down to 19 15 when Great Britain declared it ^ 

Egypt 
annexed to the British Empire as a protected state. Dur- 
ing all that time its supreme ruler was the Sultan who resided in Con- 
stantinople. But a series of remarkable events in the nineteenth cen- 
tury resulted in giving it a most singular and complicated position. To 
put down certain opponents of the Sultan an Albanian warrior, Mehemet 

AU, was sent out early in the nineteenth century. Appointed ,, . 

•' . 1 1 1 V Mehemet All 

by the Sultan Governor of Egypt m 1806, he had, by 181 1, founds a 

made himself absolute master of the country. He had sue- femi-royal 

house 
ceeded only too well. Origmally merely the representative 

of the Sultan, he had become the real ruler of the land. His ambi- 
tions grew with his successes, and he was able to gain the important con- 
cession that the right to rule as viceroy in Egypt should be hereditary in 
his family. The title was later changed to that of Khedive. Thus was 
founded an Egyptian dynasty, subject to the dynasty of Constantinople. 

The fifth ruler of this family was Ismail (1863-79). It was imder 
him that the Suez Canal was completed, a great undertaking carried 
through by a French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the j^^^^^ ^^^ 
money coming largely from European investors. This the rapid 
Khedive plunged into the most reckless extravagance. As ^^^g^'^g^® 
a result the Egyptian debt rose with extraordinary rapid- 
ity from three million pounds in 1863 to eighty-nine miUion in 1876. 

The Khedive, needing money, sold, in 1875, his shares in the Suez 
Canal Company to Great Britain for about four million pounds, to the 
great irritation of the French. This was a mere temporary relief to the 
KJiedive's finances, but was an important advantage to England, as 
the canal was destined inevitably to be the favorite route to India. 

This extraordinary increase of the Egyptian debt is the key to the 
whole later history of that country. The money had been borrowed 
abroad, mainly in England and France. Fearing the bank- intervention 
ruptcy of Egypt the governments of the two countries in- of England 
tervened in the interest of their investors, and succeeded in 
imposing their control over a large part of the financial administration. 
This was the famous Dual Control, which lasted from 1879 to 1883. 



512 THE PARTITION OF AFRICA 

The Khedive, Ismail, resented this tutelage, was consequently forced to 

abdicate, and was succeeded by his son Tewlik, who ruled from 1879 to 

1892. The new Khedive did not struggle against the Dual Control, but 

certain elements of the population did. The bitter hatred inspired by 

P j^ J this inten-ention of the foreigners flared up in a native 

Arabi movement which had as its war cr\', "Egv-pt for the Eg^-p- 

Pasha tians," and as its leader, Arabi Pasha, an officer in the 

army. Before this movement of his subjects the Khedive was powerless. 

It was e\-ident that the foreign control, established in the interests of 

foreign bond-holders, could only be perpetuated by the suppression of 

Arabi and his fellow-malcontents, and that the suppression 

expedition could be accompUshed only by the foreigners themselves. 

crushes the Thus financial inter\-ention led directlv to mihtar\' inter- 
insiirrection . _,, ,, '. ,' 

vention. England sought the cooperation 01 r ranee, but 

France declined. She then proceeded alone, defeated Arabi in Septem- 
ber, 1882, and crushed the rebeUion. 

The English had inter\-ened nominally in the interest of the Khe- 
dive's authority against his rebel, Arabi, though they had not been asked 
so to inten-ene either by the Khedive himseh or by the Sultan of Turkey, 
legal sovereign of Eg}-pt, or by the powers of Europe. Having suppressed 
the insurrection, what would they do? Would they withdraw their 
army? The question was a difficult one. To withdraw was to leave 
Eg}-pt a prey to anarchy; to remain was certainly to offend the European 
powers, which would look upon this as a piece of British aggression. 
Particularly would such action be resented by France. Consequently 
England did not annex Eg>-pt. She recognized the Khedive as stiU the 
ruler, Eg}-pt as stiU technically a part of Turkey. But she 
assumes the insisted on holding the position of "adviser '' to the Khedive 
position of aj^(j also insisted that her "advice" in the government of 
Eg^-pt be followed. From 1883 to 1915 such was the sit- 
uation. A British force remained in Egypt, the "occupation," as it was 
called, continued, ad\dce was compulsory. England was niler in fact, 
not in law. The Dual Control ended in 1883, and England began in 
earnest a work of reconstruction and reform which was carried forward 
under the guidance of Lord Cromer, who was British Consul-General 
in Eg}'pt imtn 1907. 

In intervening in EgA.-pt in 1882, England became immediately in- 
volved in a further enterprise which brought disaster and humiliation. 



GORDON .\XD THE SOUD.IX 



513 



Eg}'pt possessed a dependency to the south, the Soudan, a vast region 
comprising chiefly the basin of the Upper Xile, a poorly organized terri- 
ton- with a varied, semi-civihzed, nomadic population, and a capital at 
Khartoum. This province, long oppressed by Egypt, was in full process 
of re\-olt. It found a chief in a man called the :Mahdi, or leader, who 

succeeded in arousing the fierce 
reUgious fanaticism of the Sou- 
danese by claiming to be a kind 
of Prophet or ^Messiah. Win- 
ning successes over Loss of 
the Eg^-ptian troops, ^^ Soudan 
he proclaimed a rehgious war, 
the people of the whole Soudan 
rallied about him, and the result 
v.as that the troops were driven 
into their fortresses and there 
besieged. Would England rec- 
ognize any obligation to pre- 
serN-e the Soudan for Eg^-pt? 
Gladstone, then prime minister, 
determined to abandon the Sou- 
dan. But even this was a matter 
of difficulty. It involved at least 
the rescue of the imprisoned garrisons. The ministn,' was unwilling to 
send a militan,- expedition. It finally decided to send out General Gor- 
don, a man who had shown a remarkable power in influenckig hah- 
civilized races. It was vmderstood that there was to be no expedition. 
It was apparently supposed that somehow Gordon, without military' aid, 
could accomplish the safe \\"ithdrawal of the garrisons. He reached 
Khartoum, but found the danger far more serious than had been sup- 
posed, the rebellion far more menacing. He found himseh shortly 
shut up in Khartoum, surrounded by frenzied and confident ^lahdists. 
At once there arose in England a crv' for the rehef of Gordon, a man 
whose personality, marked by heroic, eccentric, magnetic quahties, baf- 
flingly contradictor}-, had seized in a remarkable degree the interest, 
enthusiasm, and imagination of the English people. But the Govern- 
ment was dilator}-. Weeks, and even months, went by. Finally, an 
expedition was sent out in September, 1SS4. Pushing forward rapidly, 




General Gordon 



514 



THE PARTITION OF AFRICA 



against great difficulties, it reached Khartoum January 28, 1885, only 
Death of to find the flag of the Mahdi floating over it. Only two 

Gordon ^j^yg before the place had been stormed and Gordon and 

eleven thousand of his men mas- 
sacred. 

For a decade after this the 
Soudan was left in the hands of 
the dervishes, completely aban- 
Recovery of doned. But finally 
the Soudan England resolved to 
recover this territory, which she 
did by the battle of Omdurman 
in which General Kitchener com- 
pletely annihilated the power of 
the dervishes, September 2, 1898. 

Egypt and the Soudan were 
formally declared annexed to the 
Egypt and British Empire in 
the Soudan jqjh j^g g^j^ incident 
annexed to 

the British of the European 

Empire ^^r. The Khedive 

was deposed and a new Khedive 

was put in his place, and Great 

Britain prepared to rule Egypt as she rules many of the stat'es of India, 

preserving the formality of a native prince as sovereign. Egypt was 

declared a "Protected State." 




Lord Kjtchener 



REFERENCES 

Explorations in Africa: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, pp. 805-813; 
Hughes, David Livingstone; Stanle}-, Autobiography, Chap. XV; Harris, N. D., In- 
tervention and Colonization in Africa. 

The Partition of Africa: Rose, The Development of the European Nations, Vol. 
II, pp. 228-268; Gooch, History of Our Time (Home University Library), pp. 178- 
204; Gibbons, The New Map of Africa. 

Egypt and the Soxidan: Rose, Vol. II, pp. 143-227; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, Chap. XV, pp. 429-456; Cromer, Modern Egypt; Gibbons, Chaps. I, XX, 
XXI. 

The Congo Free State: Johnston, Colonization of Africa, Chap. XI; Eose, 
Vol. II, pp. 269-298; Stanley, Chap. XVI; Gibbons, Chap. VIII. 



CHAPTER XXIX 
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 

SPAIN SINCE 1823 

We have traced the history of Spain from the downfall of Napoleon 

to the year 1823, and have seen the restored King Ferdinand VII reign 

in a manner so cruel, so unintelligent, and tyrannical that 

Spain 
the people rose in insurrection and msisted upon being 

accorded a liberal constitution.^ And we have seen that as a result the 

powers, commonly called the Holy Alliance, intervened in 1823 to put 

down this reform movement, sent a French army into the peninsula, 

and restored to Ferdinand his former absolute authority. This recovery 

of his former position through foreign aid was followed by ^ 

Revenge of 
a period of disgraceful and ruthless revenge on the part of Ferdinand 

Ferdinand upon all who were considered Liberals. Hun- ^11.^^^^^ 

1823 

dreds were executed at the order of courts-martial for the 
most trivial acts. Various classes were carefully watched as "sus- 
pects," military men, lawyers, doctors, professors, and even veterinary 
surgeons. Universities and clubs, political and social, were closed as 
dangerous. 

Ferdinand VII ruled for ten years after his second restoration, and 
in the spirit of unprogressive, unenlightened absolutism. His reign was 
not signalized by any attempt to improve the conditions of j^^gg ^f ^j^^ 
a country that sorely needed reform. It was notable mainly American 
for the loss of the immense Spanish empire in the new world, 
and the rise of the independent states of Central and South America. 
Practically nothing remained under the scepter of the King save Cuba, 
Porto Rico, and the Philippines. 

Upon the death of Ferdinand in 1833 his daughter Isabella, three 
years of age, was proclaimed Queen under her mother jgabeiia 
Christina as Regent. Don Carlos, brother of the late proclaimed 
King, claimed that he was the lawful sovereign, asserting 
that the Salic law, excluding women from the throne, was the law of 

* See page 263. 
515 



5i6 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 

the land. A war of seven years followed to determine whether he or 
his niece should rule. The supporters of the Queen were victorious but 
during the war in order to gain strength the Regent was forced to grant 
The Carlist a seemingly liberal constitution. This was more an ap- 
W^ parent than a real concession; yet, at least nominally, the 

monarchy was henceforth constitutional and not absolute. Spain's 
political education was at least begun. As a matter of fact, however, 
the real rulers of the country for many years were the military leaders 
who overthrew and succeeded each other as ministers. 

The reign of Isabella lasted from 1833 to 1868. She was declared of 
age in 1843. Her reign was, on the whole, one of reaction. Adhering 
Character of tenaciously to the principle of monarchical authority, the 
Isabella's Queen was influenced throughout by her favorites, and did 
"'^ not observe the spirit, and frequently not the letter, of the 

constitution. Her reign was marked by absolutism nearly as unquali- 
fied as that of her predecessors. Constitutional forms were used to 
cover arbitrary actions. It was a period of short and weak ministries, 
court intrigues, petty politics, a period little instructive. Whatever dis- 
turbances occurred were vigorously repressed. 

Dissatisfaction with this regime, marked, as it was, by arbitrariness, 
by religious and intellectual intolerance, by abuses and corruption, and 
by the scandalous immorality of the Queen, increased as the reign pro- 
gressed. Finally in 1868 a revolt broke out which resulted in the flight 

T,. , of the Oueen to France, and in the establishment of a pro- 

The over- ^ ' ^ 

throw of visional government, in which Marshal Serrano and Gen- 

Isabella II ^^^Y Prim were the leading figures. The reign of the Span- 
ish Bourbons was declared at an end, and universal suffrage, religious 
liberty, and freedom of the press were proclaimed as the fundamental 
principles of the future constitution. 

The Cortes were elected a little later by imiversal suffrage and 
the future government of Spain was left to their determination. They 
The Hohen- pronounced in favor of a monarchy and against a repub- 
zoUem lie. They then ransacked Europe for a king and finally 

condidacy ^^^^^ Prince Leopold of HohenzoUern. His candidacy 
is important in history as having been the immediate occasion of the 
Franco-Prussian war of 1870. In the end Leopold declined the 
invitation. 

In November, 1870, the crown was offered by a vote of 191 out of 



SPAIN DECLARED A REPUBLIC 517 

311, to Amadeo, second son of Victor Emmanuel 11/ King of Italy. 
The smallness of the majority was ominous. The new ^^jnadeo of 
king's reign was destined to be short and troubled. Land- Savoy 
ing in Spain at the close of 1870, he was coldly received. *^ °^^° °^ 
Opposition to him came from several sources — from the Republicans, 
who were opposed to any monarch; from the Carlists, who claimed that 
the heir of Don Carlos, brother of Ferdinand VII, was the lawful king; 
from the supporters of Alfonso, son of Isabella, who held that he was the 
legitimate ruler. Amadeo was disliked also for the simple reason that 
he was a foreigner. The clergy attacked him for his adherence to con- 
stitutional principles of government. No strong body of politicians 
supported him. Ministries rose and fell with great rapidity, eight in 
two years, one of them lasting only seventeen days. Each change left 
the government more disorganized and more unpopular. Abdicadon 
Believing that the problem of giving peace to Spain was °^ Amadeo 
insoluble, and wearying of an uneasy crown, Amadeo, in February, 
1873, abdicated. 

Immediately the Cortes or Parliament declared Spain a Republic, 
by a vote of 258 to 32. But the advent of the Republic did not bring 
peace. Indeed, its history was short and agitated. Euro- gp^^ ^g_ 
pean powers, with the exception of Switzerland, withdrew dared a 
their diplomatic representatives. The United States alone ^^^^ 
recognized the new government. The Republic lasted from February, 
1873 to the end of December, 1874. It estabhshed a wide suffrage, 
proclaimed religious liberty, proposed the complete separation of the 
church and state, and voted unanimously for the immediate emanci- 
pation of slaves in Porto Rico. 

The causes of its fall were numerous. The fundamental one was that 
the Spaniards had had no long political training, essential for efficient 
self-government, no true experience in party management. The causes 
The leaders did not work together harmoniously^ More- °^ '^^ *^ 
over, the Republicans, once in power, immediately broke up into various 
groups, which fell to wrangling with each other. The enemies of the 
Republic were numerous, the Monarchists, the clergy, offended by the 
proclamation of religious liberty, all those who profited by the old regime 
and who resented the reforms which were threatened. Also, the prob- 
lems that faced the new government increased the confusion. Three 
1 Sixty- three voted for a republic; the other votes were scattering or blank. 



5i8 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 

wars were in progress during the brief life of the RepubHc — a war in 
Cuba, a Carhst war, and a war with the FederaHsts in southern Spain. 

Presidents succeeded each other rapidly. Figueras was in office four 
months. Pi y Margall sLx weeks, Salmeron and Castelar for short periods. 
Finally, Serrano became practically dictator. The fate of the Republic 
was determined by the generals of the army, the most powerful body in 
Alfonso XII ^^^ country, who declared in December, 1874 in favor of 
recognized Alfonso, SOU of Isabella 11. The Republic fell without a 
^^ ^'^^ struggle. Alfonso, landing in Spain early in 1875, and being 

received in Madrid with great enthusiasm, assumed the government, 
promising a constitutional monarchy. Thus, six years after the dethrone- 
ment of Isabella, her son was welcomed back as king. The new King 
was now seventeen years of age. His reign lasted ten years, until his 
The Consti- death in November, 1885. In 1876 a new Constitution was 
tution of voted, the last in the long line of ephemeral ,dociunents 

^ issuing during the century from either monarch or Cortes 

or revolutionary junta. Still in force, the Constitution of 1876 creates a 
responsible ministry, and a Parliament of two chambers. Spain possesses 
the machinery of parliamentary government, ministries rising and fall- 
ing according to the votes of Parliament. Practically, however, the 
political warfare is largely mimic, determined by the desire for office, 
not by devotion to principles or policies. 

AKonso XII died in 1885. His wife, an Austrian princess, Maria 
Christina, was proclaimed regent for a child born a .few months later. 
Death of the present King, Alfonso XIII. Maria Christina, during 

Alfonso XII ^j^Q sixteen years of her regency, confronted many difficul- 
ties. Of these the most serious was the condition of Cuba, Spain's 
chief colony. An insurrection had broken out in that island in 1868, 
occasioned by gross misgovernment by the mother country. This 
Cuban war dragged on for ten years, cost Spain nearly 100,000 men and 
$200,000,000, and was only ended in 1878 by means of lavish bribes 
and liberal promises of reform in the direction of self-government. 
As these promises were not fulfilled, and as the condition of the 

Cubans became more unendurable, another rebellion broke 
The . , . 1-1 J 

Spanish- out m 1 89 5. This new war, prosecuted with great and 

American savage severity by Weyler, ultimately aroused the United 

States to intervene in the interests of humanity and civi- 
lization. A war resulted between the United States and Spain in 



K 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 519 



898, which proved most disastrous to the latter. Her naval power 
was annihilated in the battles of Santiago and Cavite; her army in 
Santiago was forced to surrender, and she was compelled Loss of 

I to sign the Treaty of Paris of 1898, by which she renounced ^"^*' ^°^° 
Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands. The the°pSp- 
Spanish Empire, which at the opening of the nineteenth P"^®^ 
century bulked large on the map of the world, comprising immense 
possessions in America and the islands of both hemispheres, has dis- 
appeared. Revolts in Central and South America, beginning when 
Joseph Napoleon became king in 1808, and ending with Cuban inde- 
pendence ninety years later, have left Spain with the mere shreds of 
her former possessions, Rio de Oro, Rio Muni in western Africa, some 
land about her ancient presidios in Morocco, and a few small islands 
off the African coast. The disappearance of the Spanish colonial empire 
is one of the most significant features of the nineteenth century. Once 
one of the great world powers, Spain is to-day a state of inferior rank. 

In 1902 the present King, Alfonso XIII, formally assumed the reins 
of government. He married in May, 1906 a member of the royal 
family of England, Princess Ena of Battenberg. Profound Alfonso xiii 
and numerous reforms are necessary to range the country assumes 
in the line of progress. Though universal suffrage was es- ^'^'^^^ 
tablished in 1890, political conditions and methods have not changed. 
Illiteracy is widespread. Out of a population of 18,000,000 perhaps 
12,000,000 are illiterate. In recent years attempts have been made to 
improve this situation; also to reduce the influence of the Roman 
Catholic Church in the state. Nothing important has yet been accom- 
plished in this direction. Liberty of public worship has only recently 
been secured for the members of other churches. 
PORTUG.\L, 1815-1914 

Portugal, like other countries, felt the full shock of Napoleonic ag- 
gression. French armies were sent into the peninsula in 1807 for the 
purpose of forcing that country into the Continental Sys- ^^^ ^^ ^^ 
tem, of closing all Europe to English commerce. The royal royal famUy 
family fled from Lisbon just as the French were approach- JgQ^''^^^' 
ing, and went to the capital of Portugal's leading colony, 
Brazil. The actual authority in Portugal for several years was the Eng- 
lish army and Lord Beresford. After the fall of Napoleon the Portu- 
guese hoped for the return of the royal family, but this did not occur. 



520 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 

The King, John VI, was contented in Rio de Janeiro; moreover, he felt 

that his departure from Brazil would be the signal for a rebellion in that 

colony which would end in its independence. The situation gave great 

dissatisfaction to the Portuguese, whose pride was hurt by the fact 

that they no longer had a court in Lisbon, and that the mother country 

seemed to be in the position of a colony, inferior in importance to Brazil. 

The King finally returned from Brazil, leaving his eldest son, Dom Pedro, 

as regent of that country. In 1822 Brazil declared itself an indepen- 

Portugal dent empire under Dom Pedro I. Three years later its 

loses Brazil independence was recognized by Portugal. Thus Portugal 

lost its leading colony. 

The death of John VI in 1826 created a new crisis which distracted 

the country for many years. His eldest son, Dom Pedro, was Emperor 

of Brazil. His younger son was Dom Miguel. Dom Pedro 
Introduction . , . . 

of pariia- was lawfully King of Portugal. He opened his reign as 

mentary Pedro IV by granting a liberal constitutional charter in- 

government , . ,. .,_,., 

troducmg parliamentary government of the Lngiish type. 

Then, not wishing to return from Brazil, he abdicated in favor of his 
daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria. Hoping to disarm his brother Dom 
Donna Miguel, who himself wished to be king, he betrothed his 

Maria da daughter, aged seven, to Dom Miguel, decreeing that the 

°"* marriage should be celebrated when Donna Maria became 

of age. He then appointed Dom Miguel regent for the little princess. 
But Miguel, landing in Portugal in 1828, was proclaimed king by the 
absolutists. He accepted the crown. His reign was odious in the ex- 
treme, characterized by cruelty and arbitrariness, by a complete defiance 
of the law, of all personal liberty, by imprisonments and deportations 
and executions. Dom Pedro abdicated his position as Emperor of 
Brazil, and returned to Europe to take charge of the cause of his 
daughter. This civil war between Maria da Gloria and Dom Miguel 
resulted in the favor of the former. Dom Miguel formally renounced 
all claims to the throne and left Portugal never to return (1834). 

Maria reigned until her death in 1853, a reign rendered turbulent 
and unstable by the violence of political struggles and by frequent 
Death of insurrections. In 1852 the Charter of 1826, restored by 

Maria Maria's government, was liberalized by important altera- 

tions, with the result that various parties were satisfied, and political 
life under her successor, Pedro V, was mild and orderly. His reign was 



PORTUGAL A REPUBLIC 521 

uneventful. He was followed in 1861 by Louis I, and he in 1889 by 
Carlos I. 

Meanwhile radical parties, Republican, Socialist, grew up. Dis- 
content expressed itself by deeds of violence. The Government replied 
by becoming more and more arbitrary. The King, Carlos Recent 
I, even assumed to alter the Charter of 1826, still the events in 
basis of Portuguese political life, by mere decree. The ° "^ 
controversy between Liberals, Radicals, and Conservatives developed 
astounding bitterness. Parliamentary institutions ceased to work 
normally, necessary legislation could not be secured. On February i, 
1908, the King and the Crown Prince were assassinated in the streets 
of Lisbon. The King's second son, Manuel, succeeded. Manuel's 
reign was brief, for, in October, 1910, a revolution broke out in Lis- 
bon. After several days of severe street fighting the mon- p ^ . 
archy was overthrown and a Republic was proclaimed, proclaimed a 
The King escaped to England. Dr. Theophile Braga, a J^p^^^""' 
native of the Azores, and for over forty years a very dis- 
tinguished man of letters, was chosen President. The constitution was 
remodeled and liberalized. The Church was separated from the State 
in 191 1, and State payments for the maintenance and expenses, of 
worship ceased. 

Since 1910 Portugal, therefore, has been a Republic. The problems 
confronting her are numerous and serious. She is burdened with an 
immense debt, disproportionate to her resources, and entailing oppres- 
sive taxation. Although primary education has been compulsory smce 
191 1, over seventy per cent of the population over six years of age still 
remain illiterate. Her population is about six millions. She has small 
colonial possessions in Asia and extensive ones in Africa, which have 
thus far proved of little value. The Azores and Madeira are not 
colonies but are integral parts of the republic. 

REFERENCES 

Spain: Hume, Modern England, pp. 248-263; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 
XI, pp. 550-572; Vol. XII, pp. 257-269; Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXV, pp. 556- 
569; Strobel, The Spanish Revolution, 1868-1875; H. R. Whitehouse, The Sacrifice of 
a Throne; J. L. M. Curry, Constitutional Government in Spain. 

Portug.^l: Stephens, Portugal, pp. 409-i32; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 
XI, pp. 572-575; Vol. XII, pp. 269-272. 

The Republic of Portugax: International Year Book, 1910, pp. 599-600; 1911, 
pp. 582-584. 



CHAPTER XXX 
HOLLAND AND BELGIUM SINCE 1830 

HOLLAND 

We have described the dismemberment of the Kingdom of the Neth- 
erlands in 1830 and the years succeeding. That kingdom, which in- 
Kingdom cluded what we know as Holland and Belgium, was the 

of the work of the Congress of Vienna, created as a bulwark 

er an s against France. The Belgians had revolted and, supported 
in the end by some of the great powers, had won their independence. 
Since then there have been two kingdoms. 

The -old Dutch provinces preserved the name henceforth of the King- 
dom of the Netherlands. This kingdom, more frequently called Hol- 
land in English-speaking countries, has had a history of comparatively 
quiet internal development, and has played no important role in inter- 
national politics. It has passed through several reigns, that of William 
I, from 1814 to 1840; of Wilham II, from 1840 to 1849; of William III, 
from 1849 to 1890, and of Queen Wilhelmina since 1890. The ques- 
tions of greatest prominence in its separate history have been those 
concerning constitutional liberties, educational policy, and colonial 
administration. 

The political system rested upon the Fundamental Law granted by 
William I in 181 5. By this the kingdom became a constitutional 
The Funda- monarchy, but a monarchy in which the king was more 
mental Law powerful than the Parliament, or States-General. The 
° legislative power of the States-General was restricted to 

the acceptance and rejection of bills submitted by the Government. 
They had no powers of origination or of amendment. The budget was 
voted for a period of years; the civil service was beyond their control. 
The ministry was not responsible to them, but to the king alone. 

Such a system was an advance upon absolutism, but it left the 
king extensive powers, not easily or adequately controlled, and. ren- 
dered possible the personal government of William I, which ended in 

522 



THE DUTCH COLONIES 523 

the revolt of the Belgians in 1830. The Liberals of Holland demanded 
that this system should be radically changed, and that thenceforth the 
emphasis should be laid upon Parliament, and that Parliament should 
be brought into closer connection with the people. After ^j^^ consti. 
an agitation of several years they succeeded in securing a tution of 
revision of the constitution. By the revised Constitution 
of 1848 the power of the king was diminished, that of Parliament greatly 
increased. The Upper House was no longer to be appointed by the 
monarch, but elected by the provincial estates. The Lower House was 
to be chosen directly by the voters, that is, those who paid a certain 
property tax, varying according to locahty. The ministers were made 
responsible to the States-General, which also acquired the right to ini- 
tiate legislation, to amend projects submitted, and to vote the budget 
annually. Their sessions became public. Since 1848 the constitution 
has been subjected to slight amendments, one of the more Extension 
important being the enlargement in 1887 of the electorate of the 
and the extension of the suffrage practically to householders '^^"^ 
and lodgers, as in England. This increased the number of voters from 
about 140,000 to about 300,000. By a later reform, voted in 1896, in- 
creasing the variety of property qualifications, the number was augmented 
to about 700,000, or one for every seven inhabitants. Universal suffrage, 
demanded by Socialists and Liberals, has not been granted. 

The Kingdom of the Netherlands possesses extensive colonies in the 
East Indies and the West Indies. Of these the most important is Java. 
Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes in Asia, Curasao and Surinam The Dutch 
or Dutch Guiana in America, are valuable possessions. Colonies 
The Dutch colonial empire has a population of about 38,000,000, com- 
pared v/ith a population of about 6,000,000 in the Netherlands them- 
selves. The colonies are of great importance commercially, furnishing 
tropical commodities in large quantities, sugar, coffee, pepper, tea, 

tobacco, and indigo. 

BELGIUM 

The constitution adopted by the Belgians in 183 1, at the time 
of their separation from Holland, is still the basis of the state. It 
established an hereditary monarchy, a Parliament of two chambers, 
and a ministry responsible to it. The King, Leopold I, scrupulously 
observed the methods of parliamentary government from the outset, 
choosing his ministers from the party having the majority in the 



524 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM SINCE 1830 



chambers. Leopold's reign lasted from 1831 to his death in 1865. It 
was one of peaceful development. Institutions essential to the welfare 
of the people were founded. Though the neutrahty of Belgium was 
The reign of guaranteed by the powers, it was nevertheless essential 
Leopold I i^hat she should herself have force enough to assert her 
neutrality. The army was consequently organized and put upon a 

war basis of 100,000 men. 
State universities were 
founded, and primary and 
secondary schools were 
opened in large numbers. 
Legislation favorable to in- 
dustry and commerce was 
adopted. Railroads were 
built. Liberty of religion, of 
the press, of association, of 
education, was guaranteed by 
the constitution. Foreign 
relations were prudently con- 
ducted by Leopold I, whose 
influence with other rulers of 
Europe was great, owing to 
his extensive acquaintance 
with European statesmen, his 
knowledge of politics, his 
sureness of judgment. Under 
Leopold I Belgium's material 
and intellectual development was rapid. 

He was succeeded in 1865 by his son, Leopold II, who ruled for 
forty-four years. The two most important political questions during 
The most of this period concerned the suffrage and the schools, 

suffrage 'pj^g suffrage was limited by a comparatively high prop- 

erty qualification, with the result that in 1890 there were only about 
135,000 voters out of a population of six millions. As the cities had 
grown rapidly, and as the working classes were practically disfran- 
chised, the demand for universal suffrage became increasingly clam- 
orous until it could no longer be ignored. In 1893 the constitution 
was revised, and the suffrage greatly enlarged. Every man of twenty- 




KiNG Albert I 
From a photograph by Collings, London. 



BELGIUM CONQUERED BY GERMANY 525 

five years of age, not disqualified for some special reason, received 
the franchise. But supplementary votes were given to those who, in 
addition to the age qualification, could meet certain property qualifica- 
tions. This is the principle of plural voting, and was designed to give 
the propertied classes more weight than they would have from numbers 
alone. It was provided that no voter should have more than three 
votes. This form of suffrage is strongly opposed by the Socialists, a 
growing party which has attempted to secure the recognition of the 
principle of "one man, one vote," but has not thus far been successful. 
By a law of 1899 Belgium established a system of Proportional 
Representation, being the first country in Europe to do this. An 
experience of fifteen years has sho^^Tl that this electoral device is 
distinctly conservative in tendency. 

CorCcc^ VTf 

Facsimile of Article VII of thk Treaty of 1839, which Guaranteed the Inde- 
pendence AND Perpetual Neutrality of Belgium 

The political parties of most importance have been the Liberal and 

the Catholic. The Catholics have struggled to gain sectarian religious 

instruction in the schools, and have in great measure sue- ^ . 

' ° Education 

ceeded. Their opponents desire unsectarian schools. 

Belgium is the most densely populated country in Europe, Its popu- 
lation of more than seven millions is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. 
It possesses one colony, the former Congo Free State, transformed into 
a colony in 1908. 

Leopold II died December 17, 1909, and was succeeded by his nephew 
Albert I. 

In August, 1914 the neutrality of Belgium was broken by Germany, 
despite her explicit and solemn recognition by treaty of Belgian in- 
violability. Germany overran, devastated, and conquered that country. 
Its future will depend upon the outcome of the European War. 



526 HOLLAND AND BELGIUM SINCE 1830 

REFERENCES 

Holland: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 661-668; \'ol. XII, pp. 243- 
250; Seignobos, Political History of Europe Since 1814, pp. 238-244. 

Belgixjm: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 669-674; Vol. XII, pp. 
250-256; Seignobos, pp. 244-255; Ensor, Belgium (Home University Library), 
pp. 142-250; Ogg, The Governments of Europe, Chap. XXIX. 



\ 



CHAPTER XXXI 
SWITZERLAND 

Switzerland in 1815 was a loose confederation of twenty-two 
states or cantons.^ These varied greatly in their forms of govern- 
ment. A few were pure democracies, the people meeting en masse at 
stated periods, generally in some meadow or open place, to enact laws 
and to elect officials to execute them. But these were the smaller and 
poorer cantons. In others, the government was not democratic, but 
was representative. In some of these political power was practically 
monopolized by a group of important families, the patricians; in others 
by the propertied class. Most of the cantons, therefore, were not demo- 
cratic, but were governed by privileged classes. The central govern- 
ment consisted of a Diet, which really was a congress of ^j^^ consti- 
ambassadors, who voted according to the instructions given tution of 
them by the cantons that sent them. The constitution was 
the Pact of 181 5. Switzerland did not have a capital. The Diet sat 
alternately in three leading cities, Bern, Zurich, and Lucerne. 

In Swiss institutions, therefore, the emphasis was put upon the can- 
tons, not upon the confederation. This had been the case during the 
five himdred years of Swiss history, save during a short ^j^^ impor-. 
period of French domination under the Directory and tance of the 
under Napoleon. The cantons retained all powers that 
were not expressly granted to the Diet. They had their own postal 
systems, their own coinage. A person was a citizen of a canton, not of 
Switzerland. Leaving his canton, he was a man without a country. 
Cantons might make commercial treaties with foreign powers. The 
Pact of 18 1 5 said nothing about the usual liberties of the press, of public 
meeting, of religion. These matters w^ere, therefore, left in the hands of 

' Three of these were divided into " half-cantons," thus making in all 
twenty-five cantonal governments. A " half-canton " has the same powers in 
local government as has a whole canton. In federal affairs, however, it has 
only half the weight. 

527 



528 SWITZERLAND 

' the cantons, which legislated as they chose, in some cases very illiber- 
ally. Several possessed established churches, and did not allow any 
others. Valais did not permit Protestant worship, Vaud did not permit 
Catholic. Education was entirely a cantonal affair. Most of the can- 
tons were neither democratic nor liberal, and it remained for the future 
to accomplish the unification of these petty states. 

For about fifteen years after 1815 most of the cantons followed gen- 
erally reactionary policies. Then began the period which the Swiss call 
The " Era ^^^ ^^^ ^^ regeneration, in which the constitutions of many 
of Regen- of the cantons were liberalized by the recognition of the 
era ion classes hitherto excluded from power, and now becoming 

clamorous. The cantonal governments were wise enough to make 
the concessions demanded, such as universal suffrage, freedom of the 
press, equality before the law, before discontent appealed to force. 
Between 1830 and 1847 there were nearly thirty revisions of cantonal 
constitutions. 

The same party which demanded liberal cantonal constitutions 
demanded a stronger central government. This, however, was not 
effected so easily, but only after a short civil war, the war of the 
Sonderbund. 

As each canton possessed control of religion and education, it had 
come about that in the seven Catholic cantons the Jesuits had gained 
great influence, which they were striving to increase. The Radical 
party stood for liberty of religion, secular education, a lay state. It 
wished to increase the power of the central government, so that it might 
impose its views upon the whole confederation. For this reason the 
Catholic cantons were opposed to any increase of the federal power, 
and wished to maintain the authority of the cantons untouched, for 
only thus could they maintain their views. Religious and political 
passions finally rose so high that in 1847 the seven Catholic cantons 
The Sender- formed a special league (Sonderbund), for the purpose of 
^"^^ protecting the interests which they considered threatened. 

They regarded their action as merely defensive against possible attack. 
The Radicals were, however, able to get a vote through the Diet order- 
ing the disbandment of this league. As the members of the league re- 
fused to disband, a war resulted (1847). It was of brief duration and 
was over in three weeks. The victory, which did not cost many lives, 
was easily won by the forces of the federal government, which were much 



EVOLUTION OF SWISS DEMOCRACY 529 

more numerous and better equipped than those of the league. The Son- 
derbund was dissolved, the Jesuits were expelled, and the triumphant 
Radicals proceeded to carry out their cherished plan of strengthening 
the federal government. This they accomplished by the Constitution of 
1848, which superseded the Pact of 1815. This constitu- ^j^^ consti- 
tion, with some changes, is still in force. It transformed tution of 
Switzerland into a true federal union, resembling, in many "^^^^ 
respects, the United States. The Diet of ambassadors gave way to 
a representative body with extensive powers of legislation. 

The federal legislature was henceforth to consist of two houses: the 
National Council, elected directly by the people, one member for 
every 20,000 inhabitants; and the Council of States, com- The Federal 
posed of two members for each canton. In the former. Government 
population counts; in the latter, the equality of the cantons is 
preserved. The two bodies sitting together choose the Federal Tribu- 
nal, and also a committee of seven, the Federal Council, to serve as the 
executive. From this committee of seven they elect each year one who 
acts as its chairman and whose title is "President of the Swiss Confed- 
eration," but whose power is no greater than that of any of the other 
members. It was recognized that there should be a single capital, and 
Bern was chosen as such, on account of its position near the border of 
the German- and French-speaking districts. 

Larger powers w^re now given to the confederation: the control of 

foreign affairs, the army, tariffs, the postal system, and the 

coinage. The cantons retained great powers, such as the the Federal 

right to legislate concernmg civil and criminal matters, ^^^ cantonal 
^ <^ <=> governments 

religion, and education. 

The new constitution was put immediately into force. It converted 
an ancient league of states into a strong federal union. It created for 
the first time in history a real Swiss nation. This was one of the tri- 
umphs of the nationalistic spirit, of which Europe saw so many during 
the nineteenth century. It was also a triumph of another of the motive 
forces of the century, the democratic spirit. 

Since 1848 Sw^itzerland has pursued a course of peaceful develop- 
ment, but one of extraordinary interest to the outside „, ... 
' . -^ . . The chief 

world. This interest consists not in great events, nor in significance 
foreign policy, for Switzerland has constantly preserved a °^ Switzer- 
strict neutrality, but in the steady and thoroughgoing evo- 



530 SWITZERLAND 

lution of certain political forms which may be of great value to all 
self-governing countries. There have been developed in Switzerland 
certain processes of law-making the most democratic in character known 
to the world. The achievement has been so remarkable, the process so 
uninterrupted, that it merits description. 

In all countries calling themselves democratic, the political machin- 
ery is representative, not direct, i.e., the voters do not make the laws 
themselves, but merely at certain periods choose people, their represen- 
tatives, who make them. These laws are not ratified or rejected by the 

voters; they never come before the voters directly. But 
Important i o • i i i • i i i 

contributions the bwiss have sought, and with great success, to render the 

to democratic voters law-makers themselves, and not the mere choosers 

of law-makers, to apply the power of the democracy to the 

national life at every point, and constantly. They have done this in 

various ways. Their methods have been? first worked out in the cantons, 

and later in the confederation. 

Some of the smaller cantons have from time immemorial been pure 
democracies. The voters have met together at stated times, usually 
The Landes- ^^ ^^® open air, have elected their officials, and by a show 
gemeinde of hands have voted the laws. There are six such cantons 
can ons tQ-day. Such direct government is possible, because these 

cantons are small both in area and population. They are so small that 
no voter has more than fifteen miles to go to the voting place, and 
most have a much shorter distance. 

But in the other cantons this method does not prevail. In them the 
people elect representative assemblies, as in England and the United 
States, but they exercise a control over them not exercised in these coun- 
tries, a control which renders self-government almost as complete as in 
the sk cantons described above. They do this by the so-called referen- 
dum and initiative. In the cantons where these processes are in vogue 
the people do not, as in the Landes gemeinde cantons, come together in 
mass meeting and enact their own laws. They elect, as in other coun- 
tries, their own legislature, which enacts the laws. The government is 
representative, not democratic. But the action of the legislature is not 
final, only to be altered, if altered at all, by a succeeding legislature. 
The Laws passed by the cantonal legislature may or must be 

referendum referred to the people (referendum), who then have the 
right to reject or accept them, who, in other words, become the law- 



THE INITIATIVE 531 

makers, their legislature being simply a kind of committee to help them 
by suggesting measures and by drafting them. 

The initiative, on the other hand, enables a certain number of voters 
to propose a law or a principle of legislation and to require that the leg- 
islature submit the proposal to the people, even though it The 
is itself opposed to it. If ratified the proposal becomes law. ""tiative 
The initiative thus reverses the order of the process. The impulse to 
the making of a new law comes from the people, not from the legislature. 
The referendum is negative and preventive. It is the veto power given 
to the people. The initiative is positive, originative, constructive. 
By these two processes a democracy makes whatever laws it pleases. 
The one is the complement of the other. They do not abolish legisla- 
tures, but they give the people control whenever a sufficient number 
wish to exercise it. The constitution of the canton of Zurich expresses 
the relation as follows: "The people exercise the law-making power with 
the assistance of the state legislature." The legislature is not the final 
law-making body. The voters are the supreme legislators. These two 
devices, the referendum and the intiative, are intended to estabUsh, 
and do establish, government of the people, and by the people. They 
are of immense interest to all who wish to make the practice of democracy 
correspond to the theory. By them Switzerland has more nearly ap- 
proached democracy than has any other country. 

Switzerland has made great progress in education and in industry. 
The population has increased over a million since 1850 and now num- 
bers about three and a half millions. The population is ^he popula- 

not homogeneous in race or language. About 71 per cent tion of 

^ , . Ti. T J Switzerland 

speak German, 21 per cent French, 5 per cent Itahan, and 

a small fraction speak a peculiar Romance language called Roumansch. 
But language is not a divisive force, as it is elsewhere, as it is, for 
example, in Austria-Hungary and in the Balkan peninsula, probably 
because no political advantages or disadvantages are ^he neutral- 
connected with it. • Swit°zeriand 
The neutrality of Switzerland is guaranteed by the 

powers. 

REFERENCES 

History of Switzerland: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, Chap. VIII, 
pp. 234-261; Hug and Stead, Switzerland, pp. 382^21; Baker, A History of the Rise 
and Progress of the Swiss People, pp. 462-538; LoweU, Governments and Parties in 



532 SWITZERLAND 

Continental Europe, Vol. II, pp. 301-336; Seignobos, Political History of Europe 
Since 1814, pp. 257-284. 

Political Institutions: Lowell, Vol. II, Chaps. XI and XII; Ogg, Governments 
of Europe, pp. 405-439; Vincent, Government in Switzerland, pp. 180-300; Hobson, 
A Sovereign People: A Study of Swiss Democracy; Ogg, Social Progress in Contemporary 
Europe, Chap. XIV, pp. 200-212. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
THE SCANDINAVIAN STATES 

DENMARK 

During the later wars of Napoleon Denmark had been his ally, 
remaining loyal to the end, while other allies had taken favorable occa- 
sion to desert him. For this conduct the conquerors of Napoleon pun- 
ished her severely by forcing her, by the Treaty of Kiel, Denmark 
January, 1814, to cede Norway to Sweden, which had sided loses 
with the conquerors. The condition of the Danish king- ^^""^^ 
dom was therefore deplorable, indeed. By the loss of Norway her popu- 
lation was reduced one-third. Her trade was ruined, and her finances 
were in the greatest disorder. 

The government was an absolute monarchy and it remained so 
down to the memorable mid-century upheaval of Europe in 1848. In 
1849 the King, Frederick VII, issued a constitution. In Constitution 
1854 he promulgated another and in 1855 still another, granted 
The difficulty was that the question of a constitution was bound up 
with that vastly complicated problem of the relation of the duchies, 
Schleswig and Holstein, to Denmark. That problem was settled, as 
we have seen, in 1864, by the attack of two great powers, j^^^^^^^ 
Prussia and Austria, upon Denmark, and their appropri- loses 
ation of the duchies for themselves. The question of the I'^^/g^^'^]^^' 
duchies was thus settled, as far as Denmark was con- 
cerned. For the second time in the nineteenth century Denmark suf- 
fered a dismemberment at the hands of the great miHtary powers. 
This reduced her territorial extent by a third, her population by about 
a million. 

Since that war Denmark has pursued a policy of internal develop- 
ment, undisturbed by foreign politics. A constitution was issued in 
1866, a revision of that of 1849, establishing a Parliament Revi^on of 

of two houses. This Parliament, long conservative, has the 

• ,1-1 1 T o Constitution 

become in recent years mcreasmgly liberal. In 1891, an 

old age pension system was established. All over skty years, of good 

.533 



534 THE SCANDINAVIAN STATES 

character, are entitled to a pension, half of which is paid by the 
Growth of state, half by the local authority. There is no require- 
radicaiism ment of previous payments on the part of the recipients 
as there is in Germany. By amendments to the constitution adopted 
in 19 1 5 the suffrage was made practically universal, being extended to 
nearly all women as well as men. Voters must be at least twenty- 
five years of age. Education is compulsory between the ages of seven 
and fourteen. The population of Denmark is about two million and 
three quarters. The area is about that of Switzerland. 

Denmark has extensive possessions — Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe 
Islands, and the three small West Indian islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, 
Denmark's and St. John. Of these the most important is Iceland, 
colonies 5qq miles west of Norway, with an area of over 40,000 

square miles and a population of about 85,000. Iceland was granted 
home rule in 1874, and has its own Parliament of thirty-six members. 
In 1874 Iceland celebrated the thousandth anniversary of its settlement. 
The Faroes are not colonies, but parts of the kingdom. 

The present king is Frederick VIII, who has been on the throne 

since 1906. 

SWEDEN AND NORWAY 

Both Sweden and Norway were affected by the course of the Napo- 
leonic wars. After the Treaty of Tilsit of 1807, by which Russia and 
France became alhes, Russia proceeded to gratify a long cherished ambi- 
tion by seizing Finland from Sweden, thus gaining a large territory and a 
long coast line on the Baltic Sea. Later, Sweden, uniting with the Allies 
against Napoleon, was rewarded in 18 14 by the acquisition of Norway, 
torn from Denmark, which had adhered to Napoleon to the end, and 
which was accordingly considered a proper subject for punishment. 

The Norwegians had not been consulted in this transaction. They 
were regarded as a negligible quantity, a passive pawn in the interna- 
tional game, a conception that proved erroneous, for no sooner did 
they hear that they were being handed by outsiders from Denmark to 
Sweden than they protested, and proceeded to organize resistance. 
The Consti- Claiming that the Danish King's renunciation of the crown 
tution of of Norway restored that crown to themselves, they pro- 

Eidsvoid ceeded to elect a king of their own. May 17, 18 14, and they 

adopted a liberal constitution, the Constitution of Eidsvold, establish- 
ing a Parliament, or Storthing. 



RELATIONS OF SWEDEN AND. NORWAY 535 

But the King of Sweden, to whom this country had been assigned 
by the consent of the powers, did not propose to be deprived of it by 
act of the Norwegians themselves. He sent the Crown Prince, Berna- 
dotte, into Norway to take possession. A war resulted between the 
Swedes and the Norwegians, the latter being victorious. Then the great 
powers intervened so peremptorily that the newly elected Norwegian 
king, Christian, resigned his crown into the hands of the Storthing. The 
Storthing then acquiesced in the union with Sweden, but only after 
having formally elected the King of Sweden as the King of Norway, 
thus asserting its sovereignty, and also after the King had promised to 
recognize the Constitution of 1814, which the Norwegians had given 
themselves. 

Thus there was no fusion of Norv\'ay and Sweden. There were two 
kingdoms and one king. The same person was King of Sweden and 
King of Norway, but he governed each according to its Sweden and 
own laws, and by means of separate ministries. No Swede ^°'J^^IJ^^;^ 
could hold office in Norway, no Norwegian in Sweden, under the 
Each country had its separate constitution, its separate ^ame long 
parliament. In Sweden the parliament, or Diet, consisted of four houses, 
representing respectively the nobility, the clergy, the cities, and the 
peasantry. In Norway the parliament, or Storthing, consisted of two 
chambers. Sweden had a strong aristocracy, Norway only a small and 
feeble one. Swedish government and society were aristocratic and 
feudal, Norwegian very democratic. Norway, indeed, was a land of 
peasants, who owned their farms, and fisherfolk, sturdy, simple, inde- 
pendent. Each country had its own language, each its own capital, that 
of Sweden at Stockholm, that of Norway at Christiania. 

The two kingdoms, therefore, were very dissimilar, with their dif- 
ferent languages, different institutions, and different conditions. They 
had in common a kmg, and ministers of war and foreign affairs. The 
connection between the two countries, limited as it was, led during the 
century to frequent and bitter disagreements, ending a few years ago 
in their final separation. 

The institutions of Sweden were aristocratic and antiquated. They 
remained such until 1866 when the first breach was made ^he Consti- 
in this stiff and illiberal regime. In that year the Diet was tudon of 
transformed into a modern parliament, consisting of two 
chambers. But the Upper Chamber was to be controlled by the noble 



536. 



THE SCANDINAVIAN STATES 



Friction 
between 
Sweden and 
Norway 



and rich classes; the Lower also represented propertied classes, as such 
high property qualifications were to be required of voters that as a 
matter of fact only about eight per cent of the people possessed the 
suffrage under this constitution. This system went into force in 1866, 
and remained in force until 1909. 

Under Oscar II, who ruled from 1872 to 1907, the relations between 
Sweden and Norway became acute, ending finally in complete rupture. 

Friction between 

them had existed ever 

since 1814, and had 

provoked frequent 
crises. The fundamental cause had 
lain in the different conceptions 
prevalent among the two peoples 
as to the real nature of the union 
effected in that year. The Swedes 
maintained that Norway was un- 
qualifiedly ceded to them by the 

Treaty of Kiel in 

1 8 14; that they later 

were willing to rec- 
ognize that the Nor- 
wegians should have a certain 
amount of independence; that 
they, nevertheless, possessed cer- 
tain rights in Norway and pre- 
ponderance in the Union. The 
Norwegians, on the other hand, maintained that the Union rested, not 
upon the Treaty of Kiel, a treaty between Denmark and Sweden, but 
upon their own act; that they had been independent, and had drawn 
up a constitution for themselves, the Constitution of Eidsvold; that 
they had voluntarily united themselves with Sweden by freely elect- 
ing the King of Sweden as King of Norway; that there was no fusion 
of the two states ; that Sweden had no power in Norway ; that Sweden 
had no preponderance in the Union, but that the two states were on 
a plane of entire equality. With two such dissimilar views friction 
could not fail to develop, and it began immediately after 18 14 on a 
question of trivial importance. The Norwegians were resolved to 



Dissimilar 
views in 
regard to 
the Union 




Oscar II 



SEPARATION OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY 537 

manage their own internal affairs as they saw fit, without any intermix- 
ture of Swedish influence. But their King was also King of Sweden, and, 
as a matter of fact, lived in Sweden most of the time, and was rarely 
seen in Norw^ay. Moreover, Sweden was in population much the larger 
partner in this uncomfortable union. 

By the Constitution of Eidsvold the King had only a suspensive 
veto over the laws of the Storthing, the Norwegian parliament. Any 
law could be enacted over that veto if passed by three successive Stor- 
things, with intervals of three years between the votes. The process 
was slow, but sufficient to insure victory in any cause in which the Nor- 
wegians were in earnest. It was thus that, despite the King's veto, 
they carried through the abolition of the Norwegian nobility. Contests 
between the Storthing and the King of Norway, occurring Abolition of 
from time to time, over the question of the national flag, Norwegian 
of annual sessions, and other matters, kept alive the an- °° ^^ 
tipathy of the Norwegians to the Union. Meanwhile, their prosperity 
increased. Particularly did they develop an important commerce. One- 
fourth of the merchant marine of the continent of Europe passed grad- 
ually into their hands. This gave rise to a question more serious than 
any that had hitherto arisen — that of the consular service. 

About 1892 began a fateful discussion over the question of the con- 
sular service. The Norwegian Parliament demanded a separate con- 
sular service for Norway, to be conducted by itself, to care for Norway's 
commercial interests, so much more important than those of Sweden. 
This the King would not grant, on the ground that it would break up 
the Union, that Sweden and Norway could not have two foreign poli- 
cies. The conflict thus begun dragged on for years, embittering the rela- 
tions of the Norwegians and the Swedes and inflaming passions until in 
1905 (June 7) the Norwegian Parliament declared unanimously "that 
the Union with Sweden under one king has ceased." The war feeling 
in Sweden was strong, but the Government finally decided. Dissolution 
in order to avoid the evils of a conflict, to recognize the dis- of the 
solution of the Union, on condition that the question of 
separation should be submitted to the people of Norway. Sweden held 
that there was no proof that the Nonvegian people desired this, but was 
evidently of the opinion that the whole crisis was simply the work of 
the Storthing. That such an opinion was erroneous was established by 
the vote on August 13, 1905, which showed over 368,000 in favor of 



538 THE SCANDINAVIAN STATES 

separation and only 184 votes in opposition. A conference was then 
Treaty of held at Carlstad to draw up a treaty or agreement of 
Carlstad dissolution. This agreement provided that any disputes 

arising in the future between the two countries, which could not be 
settled by direct diplomatic negotiations should be referred to the 
Hague International Arbitration Tribunal. It further provided for the 
establishment of a neutral zone along the frontiers of the two countries, 
on which no military fortifications should ever be erected. 

Later in the year the Norwegians chose Prince Charles of Denmark, 
grandson of the then King of Denmark, as King of Norway. There was 
a strong feeling in favor of a republic, but it seemed clear that the elec- 
tion of a king would be more acceptable to the monarchies of Europe, 
and would avoid all possibilities of foreign intervention. The new king 
assumed the name of Haakon VII, thus indicating the historical con- 
tinuity of the independent kingdom of Norway, which had grown up 
in the Middle Ages. He took up his residence in Christiania. 
Death of On December 8, 1907, Oscar II, since 1905 King of 

Oscar n Sweden only, died, and was succeeded by his son as 

Gustavus V. 

In 1909 Sweden took a long step toward democracy, A franchise 
reform bill, which had long been before parliament, was finally passed. 
Manhood suffrage was established for the Lower House, and the quali- 
fications for election to the Upper House were greatly reduced. 

In Norway, men who have reached the age of twenty-five, and who 
have been residents of the country for five years, have the right to vote. 
Suffrage in By a constitutional amendment adopted in 1907 the right to 
Norway ^^^-g f^j. members of the Storthing was granted to women 

who meet the same qualifications, and who, in addition, pay, or whose 
husbands pay, a tax upon an income ranging from about seventy-five 
dollars in the country to about one hundred dollars in cities. About 
300,000 of the 550,000 Norwegian women of the age of twenty-five or 
older, thus secured the suffrage. They had previously enjoyed the 
suffrage in local elections. 

Sweden has a population of about five and a half millions; Norway 
of less than two and a half millions. 

REFERENCES 
Denmark: Bain, A Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, from 1513 
to 1900, Chap. XVI; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, Chap. XXIV, pp. 691-697; 



REFERENCES 



539 



Vol. XII, Chap. XI, pp. 290-293; Seignobos, Political History of Europe Since 1814, 
pp. 566-577. 

S\\rEDEN: Bain, Chap. XVII; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 677-690; 
Vol. XII, pp. 273-280; Seignobos, pp. 554-559. 

Norway: Bain, Chap. XVII; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 677-690; 
Vol. XII, pp. 280-290; Boyesen, History of Norway, pp. 516-538; Seignobos, pp. 
559-566. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND 
THE RISE OF THE BALKAN STATES 

All through the period covered by this book there went on the process 
of the dismemberment of an empire which had once terrified the west- 
Decay of the ^^^ world, threatening all Em-ope with subjection beneath 
Ottoman her peculiarly galling and debasing yoke. During the past 

™^"^® two centuries that empire has been on the defensive and 

has steadily lost ground. In the eighteenth century Russia and Austria, 
her neighbors, despoiled her of some of her valuable lands. In the nine- 
teenth it was, in the main, her own subjects who rose against her, who 
tore the empire apart, and founded a number of independent states on 
soil that was formerly Turkish. The map of modern Europe shows 
no greater change as compared with the map a hundred years ago 
than in the Balkan peninsula. That change is the product of a most 
eventful history, the solution thus far given to one of the most intricate 
The Eastern and contentious problems European statesmen have ever 
Question ]^a,d to consider, the Eastern Question, the question, that 

is, of what should be done with Turkey. 

The Turks, an Asiatic, Mohammedan people, had conquered south- 
eastern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and had subdued 
many different races; the Greeks, claiming descent from the Greeks of 
antiquity; the Roumanians, claiming descent from Roman colonists of 
the Empire; the Albanians, and various branches of the great Slavic 
Treatment race, the Servians, Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Montene- 
of subject grins. Full of contempt for those whom they had conquered, 
peop es ^^^ Turks made no attempt to assimilate them or to fuse 

them into one body politic. They were satisfied with reducing them to 
subjection, and with exploiting them. These Christian peoples were 
effaced for several centuries beneath Mohammedan oppression, their 
property likely to be confiscated, their lives taken, .whenever it suited 
their rulers. They bore their ills with resignation as long as they thought 
it impossible to resist oppression, yet they never acquiesced in their 

S40 



THE RISE OF SERVIA 541 

position. Hating their oppressors with a deathless hatred they only 
waited for their hour of liberation. That hour seemed to come at the 
opening of the nineteenth century with the vast changes then being 
effected as a result of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. 
But the wars of liberation of the Balkan peoples from the Turks, begun 
in the first decade of the nineteenth century, are not yet over, in the 
second decade of the twentieth century. It is a long, bloody, turbulent, 
confused, heroic history. 

SERVIA 

The Servians were the first to rise, — in 1804 under Kara George, a 
swineherd. The Turks were driven from Servia for a time, but they 
regained it in 1813. The Servians again arose, and in 1820, -j-j^^ revolt 
Milosch Obrenovitch, who had instigated the murder of of the 
Kara George in 18 17, and who thus became leader himself, ^'"^^"s 
secured from the Sultan the title of "Prince of the Servians of the Pasha- 
lik of Belgrade." His policy henceforth was directed to the acquisition 
of complete autonomy for Servia. This, after long negotiations and 
strongly supported by Russia, he achieved in 1830, when a decree of the 
Sultan bestowed upon him the title of "Hereditary Prince of the Ser- 
vians." Thus, after many years of war and negotiations, Servia ceased 
to be a mere Turkish province, and became a principality tributary to 
the Sultan, but self-governing, and with a princely house ruling by 
right of heredity — the house of Obrenovitch which had succeeded in 
crushing the earlier house of Kara George. This was the first state to 
arise in the nineteenth century out of the dismemberment of European 
Turkey. Its capital was Belgrade. 

THE GREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 

The next of these subject peoples to rise against the hated oppressor 
was the Greeks. The Greeks had been submerged by the Turkish flood 
but not destroyed. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries 
they had experienced a great reinvigoration of their racial and national 
consciousness. Their condition in 1820 was better than it had been for 
centuries, their spirit was higher and less disposed to bend ^^^ condi- 
before Turkish arrogance, their prosperity was greater, tion of the 
There had occurred in the eighteenth century a remarkable 
intellectual revival, connected with the restoration and purification of 
the Greek language. 



542 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

In 182 1 the Greeks rose in revolt and began a war which did not 

end until they had achieved their independence in 1829. During the 

The Greek ^^^^ ^ix years they fought alone against the Turks. This 

war of inde- period was followed by a period of foreign intervention 
pendence rr^, r , , • , , . 

The war was one of utter atrocity on both sides, a war 

of extermination, a war not limited to the armies. Each side, when 

victorious, murdered large numbers of non-combatants, men, women, 

and children. 

The war was ineffectually prosecuted by Turkey. The period was 
made still more wretched by the inability of the Greeks to work together 
Factional harmoniously. Torn by violent factional quarrels, they 

quarrels were unable to gain any pronounced advantage. On the 

G?eTks*^^ other hand, Turkey, unable to conquer by her own force, 
called upon the Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, for aid. 
This ruler had built up a strong, disciplined army, well-equipped and 
trained in European methods, a force far superior to any which the Sul- 
tan or the Greeks possessed. Under Ibrahim, the Pasha's son, an Egyp- 
tian army of 11,000 landed in the Morea early in 1825, and began a war 
of extermination. The Morea was rapidly conquered. The fall of Mis- 
solonghi after a remarkable siege lasting about a year (April, 1825-April, 
1826), with the loss of almost all the inhabitants, and the capture the 
following year of Athens and the Acropolis, seemed to have completed 
the subjugation of Greece. Few places remained to be seized. 

From the extremity of their misfortune the Greeks were rescued by 
the decision of foreign powers finally to intervene. The sympathy of 
cultivated people had, from the first, been aroused for the country which 
Foreign had given intellectual freedom and distinction to the world, 

intervention ^his Mother of the Arts, which was now making an heroic 
and romantic struggle for an independent and worthy life of her own. 
Everywhere Philhellenic societies were formed under this inspiration of 
the memories of Ancient Greece. These societies, founded in France, 
Germany, Switzerland, England, and the United States, sought to aid 
the insurgents by sending money, arms, and volunteers, and by bringing 
pressure to bear upon the governments to intervene. Many men from 
western Europe joined the Greek armies. The most illustrious of these 
was Lord Byron, who gave his life for the idea of a free Greece, dying of 
fever at Missolonghi in 1824. Finally the governments resolved to in- 
tervene. England, Russia, and France by the Treaty of London of 1827, 



THE KINGDOM OF GREECE 543 

agreed to demand that Greece be made a self-governing state under 
Turkish sovereignty, be therefore placed in practically the The battle 
same situation as Servia. The demand was refused by the °^ Navarmo 
Turkish government. A naval battle at Navarino, October 20, 1827, re- 
sulted in the destruction of the Turkish fleet. The following year Russia 
declared war upon Turkey. This Russo-Turkish war lasted ^^ between 
over a year. In the first campaign the Russians were im- Russia and 
successful, but, redoubling their efforts, and imder better ^ ^^ 
leadership, they crossed the Balkans, and marched rapidly toward Con- 
stantinople. The French meanwhile had sent an army into the Morea, 
and had forced the Egyptian troops to leave the country and sail for 
Egypt. The Sultan was obliged to yield and the Treaty of Adrianople 
was signed with Russia September 14, 1829. 

As the outcome of this series of events Greece became a kingdom, 
entirely independent of Turkey, its independence guaranteed by the 

three powers, Russia, England, and France. The Danu- ^ 

. , II- Creation 

bian principalities^ Moldavia and Wallachia, were made of the 

practically, though not nominally, independent. The Sul- Kingdom of 

tan's power in Europe was therefore considerably reduced. 

In 1833 Otto, a lad of seventeen, second son of King Louis I of Bavaria, 

became the first King of Greece. A new Christian state had been created 

in southeastern Europe. 

THE CRniEAX WAR 

Russia emerged from the Turkish War with increased prestige and 
power. It had been her campaign of 1829 that had brought the Sultan 
to terms. Greece had become independent, and was more grateful 
to her than to the other powers. Moldavia and Wallachia, still nomi- 
nally a part of Turkey, were practically free of Turkish The Prin- 
control, and Russian influence in them was henceforth cipahties 
paramount. Several years later Russia was emboldened to attempt to 
extend her influence still further, and this attempt precipitated a reopen- 
ing of the Eastern Question, and the first great European war since the 
fall of Napoleon I. 

Russia demanded the right of protection over aU Greek Christians 
living in the Turkish Empire, of whom there were several Russian 
millions. The demand was loosely expressed and might demands 
possibly, if granted, grow into a constant right of intervention by Russia 



544 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

in the internal affairs of Turkey, ultimately making that country a 
War between ^^^^ ^^ vassal of the former. This, at any rate, was the 
Russia and assertion of Turkey. War therefore broke out between the 
^^ ^^ two powers, Russia and Turkey, in 1853. Russia expected 

that the war would be limited to these two. In this she was shortly 
undeceived, for England and France and later Piedmont, came to the 
Coalition support of the Turks. Russia found herself opposed by 

against four powers instead of by one. England went to war be- 

"^^^^ cause she feared an aggressive and expanding Russia, feared 

for the route to India ; France because Napoleon III wished to pay back 
old grudges against Russia, wished revenge for the Moscow campaign 
of Napoleon I, wished also to tear up the treaties of 181 5, which 
sealed the humiliation of France. Piedmont went to war merely to 
win the interest of England and France for Cavour's plans for the 
making of Italy. 

The war was chiefly fought in the Crimea, a peninsula in southern 
Russia, jutting out into the Black Sea and important because there 
The allies Russia had constructed, at Sebastopol, a great naval arse- 
invade the nal, and because the Russian navy was there. To seize 
rimea Sebastopol, to sink the fleet, would destroy Russia's naval 

power for many years, and thus remove the weapon with which she 
could seriously menace Turkey. 

The siege of Sebastopol was the chief feature of the Crimean War. 
That siege lasted eleven months. Sebastopol was defended in a masterly 
The siege of fashion by Todleben, the Russian engineer, and the only 
Sebastopol military hero of the first order that the war developed. 
Parts of this campaign, subsidiary to the siege, were the battles of the 
Alma, of Balaklava, rendered forever memorable by the splendid charges 
of the heavy and light brigades, and of Inkermann, full of stirring and 
heroic incident. The Allies suffered fearfully from the weather, the bitter 
cold, the breakdown of the commissary department, and the shocking 
inefficiency of the medical and hospital service. These deficiencies were 
remedied in time, but only after a terrible loss of life. 

Early in 1855 (March 2), Nicholas I died, bitterly disappointed at 
the failure of his plans. Throughout the summer of 1855 the state of 
Sebastopol grew steadily worse and it finally fell, on September 8, 1855, 
after a siege of 336 days, and an enormous expenditure in human lives. 

The war dragged on for some weeks longer, but as most of the pow- 



RESULTS OF THE CRIMEAN WAR 545 

ers were anxious for peace, they agreed to enter the Congress of Paris, 
which met February 25, 1856, and which, after a month's Treaty of 
deUberation, signed the Treaty of Paris, March 30, 1856. ^^"^ 
The treaty provided that the Black Sea should henceforth be neutral- 
ized, that it should not be open to vessels of war, even of those coun- 
tries bordering on it, Russia and Turkey, and that no arsenals should 
I be established or maintained on its shores. Its waters were to be open 
to the merchant ships of every nation. The navigation of the Danube 
was declared free. The Russian protectorate over Moldavia and Walla- 
chia was abohshed and they were declared independent under the suze- 
rainty of the Porte. The most important clause was that by which 
the powers admitted Turkey to the European family of states, from 
which she had been previously excluded as a barbarous nation, and 
by which they also agreed no more to interfere with her internal af- 
fairs. This action was taken, it was said, because the Sultan had, " in 
his constant solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, issued a firman 
recording his generous intentions towards the Christian population of 
his Empire." 

Thus Turkey was bolstered up by the Christian powers of western 
Europe because they did not wish to see Russia installed in Constanti- 
nople. As a solution of the Eastern Question the war was a flat failure, 
The promise of the Sultan that the lot of his Christian subjects should 
be improved was never kept. Their condition became worse. 

REVOLTS IN THE BALIL\NS 
By the middle of the nineteenth century the only part of the Turkish 
Empire that had become independent was Greece; Servia and Mol- 
davia- Wallachia were semi-independent and aspired to become completely 
so. The two latter provinces shortly declared themselves united under 
the single name of Roumania and, in 1866, they chose as Rise of 
their prince, a member of the Roman Catholic branch of Roumania 
the Hohenzollern family, Charles I. This German prince, who was the 
ruler of Roumania until his death in 1914, was at that time twenty-seven 
years of age. He at once set to work to study the condi- Charles I of 
tions of his newly adopted country, ably seconded in this by Roumania 
his wife, a German princess, whose Hterary gift was to win her a great 
reputation, and was to be used in the interest of Roumania. As '' Car- 
men Sylva" she wrote poems and stories, published a collection of 



546 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

Roumanian folklore, and encouraged the national idea by showing her 
preference for the native Roumanian dress and for old Roumanian 
customs. 

Charles I was primarily a soldier, and the great work of the early 
years of his reign was to build up the army, as he believed it essential 
if Roumania was to be really independent in her attitude toward Russia 
and Turkey. He increased the size of the army, equipped it with Prils- 
sian guns, and had it drilled by Prussian officers. The wisdom of this 
was apparent when the Eastern Question was again reopened. 

In 1875 the Eastern Question entered once more upon an acute phase. 
Movements began which w^ere to have a profoimd effect upon the vari- 
ous sections of the peninsula. An insurrection broke out 
Reopening . ,, r ^1 ^ • tt 

of the m the summer of that year m Herzegovma, a provmce 

Eastern -^ggj- Qf gervia. For years the peasantry had suffered 

from gross misrule. The oppression of the Turks became 
so grinding and was accompanied by acts so barbarous and inhuman 
that the peasants finally rebelled. These peasants were Slavs, and 
The insur- ^^ ^^^^ "^^^^ aided by Slavs from neighboring regions, 
rection of Bosnia, Servia, and Bulgaria. They were made all the 
Herzegovina j^^j-g bi^^^gj- because they saw Slavs in Servia comparatively 
contented, as these were largely self-governed. Why should not they 
themselves enjoy as good conditions as others? Religious and racial 
hatred of Christian and Slav against the infidel Turk flamed up through- 
out the peninsula. Christians could not rest easy witnessing the out- 
rages committed upon their co-religionists. And just at this time those 
outrages attained a ferocity that shocked all Europe. 

Early in 1876 the Christians in Bulgaria, a large province of Euro- 
pean Turkey, rose against the Turkish officials, killing some of them. 
The Bui- ^^^ revenge taken by the Turks was of incredible atrocity, 
garian Pouring regular troops and the ferocious irregulars called 

atrocities Bashi-Bazouks into the province, they butchered thou- 

sands with every refinement or coarseness of brutality. In the valley 
of the Maritza all but fifteen of eighty villages were destroyed. In 
Batak, a town of 7000 inhabitants, five thousand men, women, and 
children were savagely slaughtered with indescribable treachery and 
cruelty. 

These Bulgarian atrocities thrilled all Europe with horror. Glad- 
stone, emerging from retirement, denounced "the unspeakable Turk," 



THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR 547 

in a flaming pamphlet. He demanded that England cease to support 

a government which was an affront to the laws of God, -.1 ^ * , 

Gladstone's 
and urged that the Turks be expelled from Europe "bag denundaHon 

and baggage." The public opinion of Europe was aroused. °* *^® ^"^"^^ 
In Jul)^, 1876 Servia and Montenegro declared war against Turkey, 
and the insurrection of the Bulgarians became general. The Russian 
people became intensely excited in their sympathy with ggj-via and 
their co-religionists and their fellow-Slavs. Finally the Montenegro 
Russian government declared war upon Turkey, April 24, ^^'^^^^^ ^^'^ 
1877. The war lasted until the close of January, 1878. The chief fea- 
ture of the campaign was the famous siege of Plevna which the Turks 
defended for five months but which finally surrendered. Russia de- 
This broke the back of Turkish resistance and the Russians *=^"®s '«'" 
marched rapidly toward Constantinople. The Sultan sought peace, and 
on March 3, 1878, the Treaty of San Stefano was concluded between 
Russia and Turkey. By this treaty the Porte recog- Treaty of 
nized the complete independence of Servia, Montenegro, ^^'^ Stefano 
and Roumania, and made certain cessions of territory to the two former 
states. The main feature of the treaty concerned Bulgaria, which 
was made a self-governing state, tributary to the Sultan. Its frontiers 
were very liberally drawn. Its territory was to include nearly all of 
European Turkey, between Roumania and Servia to the north, and 
Greece to the south. Only a broken strip across the peninsula, from 
Constantinople west to the Adriatic, was to be left to Turkey. The new 
state therefore was to include not only Bulgaria proper, but Roumelia 
to the south and most of Macedonia. Gladstone's desire for the ex- 
pulsion of the Turks from Europe "bag and baggage" was nearly 
realized. 

But this treaty was not destined to be carried out. The other powers 
objected to having the Eastern Question solved without their consent. 
England particularly, fearing Russian expansion southward England 
toward the Mediterranean, and believing that Bulgaria and demands its 
the other states would be merely tools of Russia, declared 
that the arrangements concerning the peninsula must be determined by 
the great European powers, that the Treaty of San Stefano must be 
submitted to a general congress on the ground that, according to the 
international law of Europe, the Eastern Question could not be settled 
by one nation but only by the concert of powers, as it affected them all. 



548 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

Austria joined the protest, wishing a part of the spoils of Turkey for 
herself. Russia naturally objected to allowing those who had not fought 
to determine the outcome of her victory. But as the powers were insis- 
tent, particularly England, then under the Beaconsfield administration, 
and as she w^as in no position for futher hostilities, she yielded. The 
The Con- Congress of Berlin was held under the presidency of Bis- 
gress of marck, Beaconsfield himself representing England. It drew 

^^^^ up the Treaty of Berlin, which was signed July 13, 1878. 

By this treaty Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania were rendered com- 
pletely independent of Turkey. But Bulgaria was divided into three 
parts, one of which, called Macedonia, was handed back to Turkey, and 
another, called Eastern Roumelia, was to be still subject to the Sultan 
but to have a Christian governor appointed by him. The third part, 
Bulgaria, was still to be nominally a part of Turkey but was to elect 
its own prince and was to be self-governing. The powers in making these 
arrangements were thinking neither of Turkey, nor of the happiness of 
the people who had long been oppressed by Turkey. The Congress of 
Berlin, like the Congress of Vienna of 1815, was indifferent or hostile 
to the legitimate national aspirations of oppressed peoples, and there- 
fore its work has had the same fate, it has been undone in one particular 
and another and the process is continuing at the present moment, not 
yet quite completed. As far as humanitarian "considerations were cpn- 

, . cerned the disposition of Macedonia was a colossal blunder. 
Macedonia 

Its people would have been far happier had they formed a 

part of Bulgaria. Owing to the rival ambitions of the great powers 

Macedonia's Christians were destined long to suffer an odious oppression 

from which more fortunate Balkan Christians were free. 

The same powers found the occasion convenient for taking various 
Turkish possessions for themselves. Austria was invited to "occupy" 
and administer Bosnia and Herzegovina. England was to "occupy" 
Cyprus. All these territories were nominally still a part of the Turkish 
Empire. ' Their position was anomalous, unclear, and destined to create 
trouble in the future. 

On the other hand, the benefits assured by the Treaty of Berlin were 

Advantages Considerable and they were due solely to Russia's interven- 

of the Treaty tion, though Russia herself drew little direct profit from her 

war. Three Balkan states, long in process of formation, 

Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania, were declared entirely independent. 



THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN 



549 




550 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

and a new state, Bulgaria, had been called into existence, though still 
slightly subject to the Porte. As a result of the treaty, European Turkey 
was greatly reduced, its population having shrunk from seventeen mil- 
lions to six millions. In other words eleven million people or more 
had been emancipated from Turkish control. 

BULGARIA AFTER 1878 

The Treaty of Berlin, while it brought substantial advantages, did 
not bring peace to the Balkan peninsula. Though diminishing the pos- 
Unsatisfied sessions of the Sultan, it did not satisfy the ambitions of 
ambitions ^]^q various peoples, it did not expel the Turk from Europe 
and thus cut out the root of the evil. Abundant sources of trouble 
remained, as the next forty years were to show. The history of the 
various states since 1878, both in internal affairs and in their foreign 
relations, has been agitated, yet, despite disturbances, considerable 
progress has been made. 

Bulgaria, of which Europe knew hardly anything in 1876, was, in 
1878, made an autonomous state, but it did not attain complete inde- 
pendence, as it was nominally a part of the Turkish Empire, to which it 
was to pay tribute. The new principality owed its existence to Russia, 
Alexander of and for several years Russian influence predominated in it. 
Battenberg j^ -y^g^s started on its career by Russian officials. A consti- 
tution was drawn up establishing an assembly called the Sobranje. 
This assembly chose as Prince of Bulgaria, Alexander of Battenberg, a 
yovmg German of twenty-two, a relative of the Russian Imperial House, 
supposedly acceptable to the Czar (April, 1879). 

The Bulgarians were grateful to the Russians for their aid. They 
recognized those who remained after the war was over as having all the 
Friction rights of Bulgarian citizens, among others the right to hold 

between the office. Russians held important positions in the Bulgarian 
and the ministry. They organized the military forces and be- 

Russians came officers. Before long, however, friction developed, 

and gratitude gave way to indignation at the high-handed conduct of 
the Russians, who plainly regarded Bulgaria as a sort of province or out- 
post of Russia, to be administered according to Russian ideas and in- 
terests. The Russian ministers were arrogant, and made it evident that 
they regarded the Czar, not Prince Alexander, as their superior, whose 
wishes they were bound to execute. The Prince, the native army officers, 



UNION OF THE TWO BULGARIAS 551 

and the people found their position increasingly humiliating. Finally, 
in 1883, the Russian ministers were virtually forced to resign, and the 
Prince now relied upon Bulgarian leaders. This caused an open breach 
with Russia which was further widened by the action of the people of 
Eastern Roumelia in 1885 in expressing their desire to be united with 
Bulgaria. Prince Alexander agreed to this and assumed the title of 
"Prince of the Two Bulgarias." The powers protested against this 
unification, and would not recognize the change, but they refrained from 
doing anything further. 

Russia, however, incensed at the growing independence of the new 
state, which she looked upon as a mere satellite, resolved to read her a 
lesson in humility by organizing a conspiracy. The con- Abdication of 
spirators seized Prince Alexander in his bedroom in the Prince 
dead of night, forced him to sign his abdication, and then 
carried him off to Russian soil. Alexander was detained in Russia a 
short time, until it was supposed that the Russian party was thoroughly 
established in power in Bulgaria, when he was permitted to go to Austria. 
He was immediately recalled to Bulgaria, returned to receive an immense 
ovation, and then,, at the height of his popularity, in a moment of weak- 
ness, abdicated, apparently overwhelmed by the continued opposition 
of Russia (September 7, 1886). The situation was most critical. Two 
parties advocating opposite policies confronted each other; one pro- 
Russian, believing that Bulgaria should accept in place of Alexander any 
prince whom the Czar should choose for her; the other national and 
independent, rallying to the cry of "Bulgaria for the Bulgarians." The 
latter speedily secured control, fortunate in that it had a remarkable 
leader in the person of Stambuloff, a native, a son of an innkeeper, 
a man of extraordinary firmness, suppleness, and courage, Ferdinand of 
vigorous and intelligent. Through him Russian efforts to Saxe-Coburg 
regain control of the principality were foiled and a new ruler was 
secured, Prmce Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, twenty-six years of age, 
who was elected unanimously by the Sob ran je, July 7, 1887. Russia 
protested against this action, and none of the great powers recognized 
Ferdinand. 

Stambuloff was the most forceful statesman developed in the history 
of the Balkan states. He succeeded in keeping Bulgaria Dictatorship 
self-dependent. During the earlier years of his rule Ferdi- °^ Stambuloff 
nand relied upon him, and, indeed, owed to him his continuance on the 



552 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

throne. He won the pretentious title of "the Bulgarian Bismarck," 
His methods resembled those of his Teutonic prototype in more than 
one respect. For seven years he was practically dictator of Bulgaria. 
Russian plots continued. He repressed them pitilessly. His one funda- 
mental principle was Bulgaria for the Bulgarians. His rule was one of 
terror, of suppression of liberties, of unscrupulousness, directed to patri- 
otic ends. His object was to rid Bulgaria of Russian, as of Turkish, 
control. Bulgaria under him increased in wealth and population. The 
army received a modern equipment, universal military service was 
instituted, commerce was encouraged, railroads were built, popular edu- 
cation begun, and the capital, Sofia, a dirty, wretched Turkish village, 
made over into one of the attractive capitals of Europe. But Stambuloff 
Murder of made a multitude of enemies, and as a result he fell from 
stambuloff po^ej- j^ 1894. In the following year he was foully mur- 
dered in the streets of Sofia. But he had done his work thoroughly, 
and it remains the basis of the life of Bulgaria to-day. The Turkish 
sovereignty was merely nominal, and even that was not destined to 
endure long. In March, 1896 the election of Ferdinand as prince was 
finally recognized by the great powers. The preceding years had been 
immensely significant. They had thoroughly consolidated the unity of 
Bulgaria, had permitted her institutions to strike root, had accustomed 
her to independence of action, to self-reliance. Those years, too, had 
been used for the enrichment of the national life with the agencies of 
the modern world, schools, railways, an army. Bulgaria had a popula- 
tion of about four million, a capital in Sofia, an area of about 38,000 
square miles. She aspired to annex Macedonia, where, however, she 
was to encounter many rivals. She only awaited a favorable opportu- 
nity to renounce her nominal connection with Turkey. The oppor- 
tunity came in 1908. On October 5th of that year Bulgaria declared 
her independence, and her Prince assumed the title of Czar. The 
later history of Bulgaria may best be described in connection with the 
Ealkan wars of 191 2 and 1913. 

ROUMANIA AND SERVIA AFTER 1878 
At the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war in 1877, Roumania de- 
clared herself entirely independent of Turkey. This independence was 
recognized by the Sultan and the powers at the Congress of Berlin on 
condition that all citizens should enjoy legal equality, whatever their 



THE KINGDOM OF ROUMANIA 553 

religion, a condition designed to protect the Jews, who were numerous, 
but who had previously been without political rights. 

In 1 88 1 Roumania proclaimed herself a kingdom, and her prince 
henceforth styled himself King Charles I. The royal crown was made 
of steel from a Turkish gun captured at Plevna, a perpet- Roumania 
ual reminder of what was her war of independence. Rou- proclaimed a 
mania has created an army on Prussian models of about ^°sdom 
500,000 men, has built railroads and highways, and has, by agrarian 
legislation, improved the condition of the peasantry. The population 
has steadily increased, and now numbers over seven millions. The 
area of Roumania is about 53,000 square miles. While mainly an agri- 
cultural countr}^, in recent years her industrial development has been 
notable, and her commerce is more important than that of any other 
Balkan state. Her government is a constitutional monarchy, with leg- 
islative chambers. The most important political question in recent 
years has been a demand for the reform of the electoral system, which 
resembles the Prussian three-class system, and which gives the direct 
vote to only a small fraction of the population. In 1907 the peasantry 
rose in insurrection, demanding agrarian reforms. As more Agrarian dis- 
than four-fiftlis of the population live upon the land, and turbances 
as the population has steadily increased, the holding of each peasant 
has correspondingly decreased. A military force of 140,000 men was 
needed to quell the revolt. After having restored order, the ministry 
introduced and carried various measures intended to bring relief to the 
peasants from their severest burdens. 

Servia, also, was recognized as independent by the Berlin Treaty in 
1878. She proclaimed herself a kingdom in 1882. She has had a turbu- 
lent history in recent years. In 1885 she declared war against Bulgaria, 
only to be unexpectedly and badly defeated. The financial policy was 
deplorable. In seven years the debt increased from seven . 

million to three hundred and twelve million francs. The 
scandals of the private life of King Milan utterly discredited the mon- 
archy. He was forced to abdicate in 1889, and was succeeded by his 
twelve-year-old son, Alexander I, who was brutally murdered in 1903 
with his wife, Queen Draga, in a midnight palace revolution. The new 
king, Peter I, found his position for several years most unstable. A 
new and important chapter in the history of Servia began with the 
Balkan War of 191 2. 



554 DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

GREECE AFTER 1833 

In January, 1833, Otto, second son of Louis I, the King of Bavaria, 
became King of Greece, a country of great poverty, with a population 
of about 750,000, unaccustomed to the reign of law and order usual in 
western Europe. The kingdom was small, with unsatisfactory boun- 
daries, lacking Thessaly, which was peopled entirely by Greeks. The 
country had been devastated by a long and unusually sanguinary war. 
Internal conditions were anarchic. Brigandage was rife; the debt was 
large. The problem was, how to make out of such unpromising materials 
a prosperous and progressive state. 

King Otto reigned from 1833 to 1862. He was aided in his govern- 
ment by many Bavarians, who filled important positions in the army 
Reign of and the civil service. This German influence was a pri- 

^"o ^ mary cause of the unpopularity of the new regime. The 

beginnings were made, however, in the construction of a healthy national 
life. Athens was made the capital, and a imiversity was established 
there. A police system was organized; a national bank created. In 
1844 Otto was forced' to consent to the conversion of his absolute 
monarchy into a constitutional one. A parliament with two chambers, 
the Deputies being chosen by universal suffrage, was instituted. The 
political education of the Greeks then began. 

From the reopening of the Eastern Question by the Crimean war 
Greece hoped to profit by the enlargement of her boundaries. The great 
powers, however, thought otherwise, and forced her to remain quiet. 
Because the Government did not defy Europe and insist upon her rights. 
Overthrow which would have been an insane proceeding, it became 
of otto ygj-y unpopular. For this reason, as well as for despotic 

tendencies. Otto was driven from power in 1862 by an insurrection, and 
left Greece, never to return. 

A new king was secured in the person of a Danish prince, a brother 
of the then King of Denmark. The new king, George I, ruled from 1863 
to 1913. That his popularity might be strengthened at the very outset, 
The Ionian England in 1864 ceded to the kingdom the Ionian Islands, 
Islands which she had held since 181 5. This was the first enlarge- 

ment of the kingdom since its foundation. A new constitution was 
established (1864) which abolished the Senate and left all parliamentary 
power in the hands of a single assembly, the Boule, elected by universal 



THE PROBLEM OF MACEDONIA 555 

suffrage, and consisting of 192 members, with a four-year term. In 
1 88 1, mainly through the exertions of England, the Sultan was induced 
to cede Thessaly to Greece, and thus a second enlargement Annexation 
of territory occurred. This was in accordance with the °^ Thessaly 
promise of the Congress of Berlin that the Greek frontier should be 
"rectified." 

In 1897 Greece declared war against Turkey, aiming at the annexa- 
tion of Crete, which had risen in insurrection against Turkey. Greece 
was easily defeated, and was forced to cede certain parts of Thessaly to 
Turkey and give up the project of the annexation of Crete. After long 
negotiations among the powers, the latter island was made autonomous 
under the suzerainty of the Sultan, and under the direct administration 
of Prince George, a son of the King of Greece, who remained in power 
until 1906. A new problem, the Cretan, was thus pushed into the fore- 
ground of Greek politics. 

The financial condition of Greece is not sound. Her debt has grown 
enormously owing to armaments, the building of railroads, and the dig- 
ging of canals. She has, however, increased in population -j-j^ q . 
and much has been accomplished in the direction of pop- outside of 
ular education. Several millions of Greeks live outside the ^^^'^^ 
Greek kingdom. Those inside are ambitious to have them included. 

Servian, Bulgarian, and Greek rivalries met in the plains of 

Macedonia, which each coimtry coveted and which was inhabited by 

representatives of all these, peoples, inextricably intermingled. The 

problem of Macedonia was further complicated by the rivalry of the 

great powers and by the revolution which broke out in Turkey itself 

in 1908. 

REVOLUTION IN TURKEY 

The Eastern Question entered upon a new and startling phase in 
the summer of 1908. In July a swift, sweeping, and pacific revolution 
occurred in Turkey. The Young Turks, a revolutionary, The Young 
constitutional party, dominated by the political principles Turks 
of western Europe, seized control of the government, to the complete 
surprise of the diplomatists and public of Europe. This party consisted 
of those who had been driven from Turkey by the despotism of the Sul- 
tan, Abdul Hamid II, and were resident abroad, chiefly in Paris, and of 
those who, still living in Turkey, dissembled their opinions and were 
able to escape expulsion. Its members desired the overthrow of the 



556 



DISRUPTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 



Revolution 
of July, 
1908 



despotic, corrupt, and ineflScient government, and the creation in its 
place of a modern liberal system, capable, by varied and thoroughgoing 
reforms, of ranging Turkey among progressive nations. Weaving their 

conspiracy in silence 

and with remarkable 

adroitness, they suc- 
ceeded in drawing into it the 
Turkish army, hitherto the solid 
bulwark of the Sultan's power. 
Then, at the ripe moment, the 
army refused to obey the Sultan's 
orders, and the conspirators de- 
manded peremptorily by tele- 
graph that the Sultan restore the 
Constitution of 1876, a constitu- 
tion which had been granted by 
the Sultan in that year merely 
to enable him to weather a crisis, 
and which, having quickly served 
the purpose, had been immediately 
suspended and had remained sus- 
pended ever since. The Sultan, 
seeing the ominous defection of 
the army, complied at once with 
the demands of the Young Turks, 
Restoration "restored" on July 
of the Con- 
stitution 




Abdul Hamid II 
From a photograph by W. and D. Downey. 



24 the Constitution of 1876, and 
ordered elections for a parliament, which should meet in 
November. Thus an odious tyranny was instantly swept 
away. It was a veritable coup d'etat, this time effected, not by some 
would-be autocrat, but by the army, usually the chief support of des- 
potism or of the authority of the monarch, now, apparency, the main 
instrument for the achievement of freedom for the democracy. This 
military revolution, completely successful and almost bloodless, was 

received with incredible enthusiasm throughout the entire 
Apparent i i t 

unanimity breadth of the Sultan's dominions. Insurgents and soldiers, 

of this Mohammedans and Christians, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, 

movement . . 

Albanians, Armenians, Turks, all joined in jubilant celebra- 
tions of the release from intolerable conditions. The most astonishing 



THE TURKISH REVOLUTION 557 

feature was the complete subsidence of the racial and religious hatreds 
which had hitherto torn and ravaged the Empire from end to end. The 
revolution proved to be the most fraternal movement in modern history. 
Picturesque and memorable were the scenes of universal reconciliation. 
The ease and suddenness with which this astounding change was effected 
proved the universality of the detestation of the reign and methods of 
Abdul Hamid II throughout all his provinces and among all his peoples. 
Was this the beginning of a new era or was it the beginning of the 
end of the Turkish Empire? It will be more convenient to examine 
this question a little later. 

REFERENCES 

Greek War of Ixdependence: Phillips, Modern Europe, Chap. VII, pp. 135-167; 
Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, Chap. XV. 

Crimean War: Walpole, History of England Since 1815, Vol. VI, Chap. XXIV; 
Fyffe, pp. 824-865; Phillips, Chap. XIV, pp. 332-360; Murdock, The Reconstruction 
of Europe, Chaps. III-VIII, pp. 16-95; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. 
I, Chaps. XXV-XXVIII, pp. 433-524; Forbes et al.. The Balkans. 

Reopening of the Eastern Question, 1877-8: Rose, Development of the Euro- 
pean Nations, Vol. I, pp. 184-224; McCarthy, Vol. II, Chap. LXIV, pp. 574^595. 

Russo-TuRKisH W/VR ANTJ THE CONGRESS OF Berxin: Rosc, Vol. I, Chaps. VIII 
and IX, pp. 225-298; McCarthy, Vol. II, Chap. LXV, pp. 595-613. Walpole, History 
of Twenty-five Years, Vol. IV, Chaps. XVIII, pp. 98-187; Fyffe, pp. 1022-1052; 
Phillips, Chap. XIX, pp. 486-523. 

Bulgaria: Rose, Vol. I, Chap. IX, pp. 264-299; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, pp. 404-411; Seignobos, Political History of Europe Since 181 4, pp. 664-669; 
Miller, The Balkans, pp. 215-248. 

Rou^ania: Seignobos, pp. 640-648. 

Servia AND Montenegro: Seignobos, pp. 657-664. 

Greece: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, pp. 419-428. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER I 

Russia at the fall of Napoleon was the largest state in Europe, and 
was a still larger Asiatic empire. It extended in unbroken stretch from 
the German Confederation to the Pacific Ocean. Its population was 
about 45,000,000. Its European territory covered about 2,000,000 
square miles. It was inhabited by a variety of races, but the principal 
one was the Slavic. Though there were many religions, the religion of 
the court and of more than two-thirds of the population was the so- 
called Greek Orthodox form of Christianity. Though various languages 
were spoken, Russian was the chief one. The Russians had conquered 
many peoples in various directions. A considerable part of the former 
Kingdom of Poland had been acquired in the three partitions at the 
Russian close of the eighteenth century, and more in 181 5. Here 

conquests |-]^g people spoke a different language, the Polish, and ad- 
hered to a different religion, the Roman Catholic. In the Baltic prov- 
inces, Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland, the upper class was of German 
origin and spoke the German language, while the mass of peasants were 
Finns and Lithuanians, speaking different tongues. All the inhabitants 
were Lutherans. Finland had recently been conquered from Sweden. 
The languages spoken there were Swedish and Finnish, and the religion 
was Lutheran. To the east and south were peoples of Asiatic origin, 
many of them Mohammedans in religion. There w^ere in certain sec- 
tions considerable bodies of Jews. 

AH these dissimilar elements were bound together by their alle- 
giance to the sovereign, the Czar, a monarch of absolute, unUmited power. 

There were two classes of society in Russia — the nobility and the 
The peasantry. The large majority of the latter were serfs of 

nobUity ^he Czar and the nobility. The nobility numbered about 

140,000 families. The nobles secured ofl&ces in the army and the civil 

SS8 



LIBERALISM OF ALEXANDER I 559 

service. They were exempt from many taxes, and enjoyed certain mo- 
nopolies. Their power over their serfs was extensive and despotic. They 
enforced obedience to their orders by the knout and by banishment to 
Siberia. The middle class of well-to-do and educated people, increas- 
ingly important in the other countries of Europe, practically did not 
exist in Russia. Russia was an agricultural country, whose agriculture, 
moreover, was very primitive and inefficient. It was a na- The 
tion of serfs and of peasants little better off than the serfs, peasantry 
This class was wretched, uneducated, indolent, prone to drmli excessively. 
In the "mir," or village community, however, it possessed a rudimentary 
form of communism and limited self-government. 

Over this vast and ill-equipped nation ruled the Autocrat of All the 
Russias, or Czar, an absolute monarch, whose decisions, expressed in 
the form of ukases or decrees, were the law of the land. Alexander i 
The ruler in 181 5 was Alexander I, a man thirty-eight (I8OI-I825) 
years of age. 

Alexander stood forth as the most enlightened sovereign on any of 
the great thrones of Europe. In the reorganization of Europe m 1814 
and 181 5 he was, on the whole, a liberal force. He favored generous 
terms to the conquered French, he insisted that LoUis XVIII should 
grant a constitution to the French people, he encouraged the aspira- 
tions of the German people for a larger political life. 

He showed his liberal tendencies even more unmistakably in his 
Polish policy. He succeeded at the Congress of Vienna in securing most 
of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw which he now transformed 
into the Kingdom of Poland. This was a state of 3,000,000 
inhabitants with an area less than one-sLxth the size of the former Polish 
kingdom, but containing the Polish capital, Warsaw. This was hence- 
forth to be an independent kingdom, not a part of Russia. The only 
connection between the two was in the person of the ruler. The Czar 
of Russia was to be King of Poland. Alexander granted a constitution 
to this state, creating a parliament, and promising liberty of the press 
and of religion. The Polish language was to be the official language. 
Poland enjoyed freer institutions at this moment than did either Prussia 
or Austria. The franchise was wider than that of England or France. 
Apparently, also, Alexander considered his Polish experiment as pre- 
liminary to an introduction of similar reforms in Russia also. 

But Alexander's character was unstable. He was impressionable, 



56o RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

changeable, easily discouraged. Metternich made it his especial business 

., , to frighten him out of his liberalism, which was the chief 

Alexander ^ & ' ^ 

becomes obstacle in Europe to his policy of resolute reaction. He 

reactionary ceaselessly played upon Alexander's essentially timid nature 
and it took him only three years to accomplish this conversion. Alex- 
ander then became a vigorous supporter of Metternich's policy of inter- 
vention which expressed itself in the various congresses and which made 
the name of the Holy Alliance a by-word among men. He became dis- 
appointed over his Polish experiment and began to infringe upon the 
liberties he himself had granted. He grew more and more reactionary 
and when he died, on December i, 1825, he left an administration domi- 
nated by a totally different spirit from that which had prevailed in the 

earlier years. 

THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS I 

He was succeeded by his brother Nicholas I, whose reign of thirty 
years, 1825-1855, was eventful. It was one of uncompromising abso- 
Nicholas I lutism, both at home and abroad. Nicholas was the great 
(1825-1855) bulwark of monarchical authority in Europe for thirty 
years. His system of government was one of remorseless, imdeviating 
repression, througTi the agencies of a brutal police and an elaborate 
Systematic censorship. Punishments for Liberals of any kind were 
repression Qf great severity. The most harmless word might meaii 
exile to Siberia, without any kind of preliminary trial. In twenty years 
perhaps 150,000 persons were thus exiled. Tens of thousands lan- 
guished in the prisons of Russia. Religious persecution was added to 
political. 

Nicholas's foreign policy was marked by the same characteristics, 
and made him hated throughout Europe as the most brutal autocrat 
His foreign on the Continent. He suppressed the Polish insurrection 
poUcy of 1830-31, abolished the constitution granted by Alexander 

I, and incorporated Poland in Russia, thus ending the history of that 
kingdom, a history of only fifteen years. He waged two wars against 
Turkey, previously described, one in 1828-9, and one in 1853-5. He 
interfered decisively to suppress the Hungarian revolutionists in 1849. 
He died in the middle of the Crimean War, though not until it was ap- 
parent that the prestige of his country, so overwhelming since Napo- 
leon's flight from Moscow in 181 2, had been completely shattered. 
This war was not only a defeat but a disillusionment. The Govern- 



THE EMA^XIPATION OF THE SERFS 561 

ment was proved to be as incompetent and as impotent as it was 
reactionary. It was clear that the state was honeycombed with abuses 
which must be reformed if it was to prosper. 

THE REIGX OF ALEXANDER II 

That the time for changes had come was clearly seen by the next 
occupant of the throne, Alexander II, who ruled from 1855 to 1881. Of 
an open mind, and desirous of ameliorating the condi- Alexander II 
tions of Russian life, he for some years followed a policy (1855-1881) 
of reform. He relaxed the censorship of the press and removed most 
of the restrictions which had been imposed upon the universities and 
upon travel. Particularly did he address himself to the question of 
serfdom. 

Nearly all, practically nine-tenths, of the arable land of Russia, w^as 
owned by the imperial family and by the one hundred and forty thou- 
sand families of the nobility. The land was, therefore, prevaUing 
generally held in large estates. It was owned by a small system of 
minority; it was tilled by the millions of Russia who were ^° tenure 
serfs. It was easy for the Emperor to free the crown serfs, about 
23,000,000, since no one could question the right of the state to do 
what it would with its own. Consequently the crown serfs were freed 
by a series of measures covering several years, 1859 to 1866. But the 
Edict of Emancipation, which was to constitute Alexander II's most 
legitimate title to fame, concerned the serfs of private The problem 
landowners, the nobles. There were about 23,000,000 of °^ serfdom 
these, also. These private landlords reserved a part of their land for 
themselves requiring the serfs to work it without pay, generally three 
days a week. The rest of the land was turned over to the serfs who 
cultivated it on their owti account, getting therefrom what sup- 
port they could, hardly enough, as a matter of fact, for sustenance. 
The serfs were not slaves in the strict sense of the word. They could 
not be sold separately. But they were attached to the soil, could not 
leave it without the consent of the owner, and passed, if he sold his 
estate, to the new owner. The landlord otherwise had practically un- 
limited authority over his serfs. They possessed no rights which, in 
practice, he was bound to respect. Such a system, it is needless to say, 
offended the conscience of the age. 

On March 3, 1861, the Edict of Emancipation was issued. It abol- 



562 RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

ished serfdom throughout the Empire, and it won for Alexander the 
The Edict ef popular title of "the Czar Liberator." This manifesto 
Emancipation ^[(^ ^ot merely declare the serfs free men; but it under- 
took also to solve the far more difficult problem of the ownership of 
the soil. The Czar felt that merely to give the serfs freedom, and to 
leave all the land in the possession of the nobles, would mean the 
creation of a great proletariat possessing no property, therefore 
likely to fall at once into a position of economic dependence upon 
the nobles, which would make the gift of freedom a mere mockery. 
Moreover, the peasants were firmly convinced that they were the right- 
The land ful owners of the lands which they and their ancestors for 

problem centuries had lived upon and cultivated, and the fact that 

the landlords were legally the owners did not alter their opinion. To 
give them freedom without land, leaving that with the nobles, who de- 
sired to retain it, would be bitterly resented as making their condition 
worse than ever. On the other hand, to give them the land with their, 
freedom would mean the ruin of the nobility as a class, considered essen- 
tial to the state. The consequence of this conflict of interests was a 
compromise, satisfactory to neither party, but more favorable to the 
nobility than to the peasants. 

The lands were divided into two parts. The landlords were to keep 
one; the other was to go to the peasants either individually or collec- 
Division of tively as members of the village community or mir t© 
the land which they belonged. But this was not given them out- 

right; the peasant and the village must pay the landlord for the land 
assigned them. As they were not in a position to do this the state 
was to advance the money, getting it back from the peasant and the 
mir in easy installments. These installments were to run for forty-nine 
years, at the end of which time they would cease and the peasant and 
the mir would then own outright the lands they had acquired. 

This arrangement was a great disappointment to the peasants. 
Their newly acquired freedom seemed a doubtful boon in the light of 
Disappoint- ^^^^ method of dividing the land. Indeed, they could 
ment of the not see that they were profiting from the change. Per- 
peasan ry sonal liberty would not mean much, when the conditions 

of earning a livelihood became harder rather than lighter. The peas- 
ants regarded the land as their own. But the state guaranteed for- 
ever a part to the landlords and announced that the peasants must 



THE QUESTION OF THE LAND 563 

pay for the part assigned to themselves. To the peasants this seemed 
sheer robbery. Moreover, as the division worked out, they found that 
they had less land for their own use than in the preemancipation days, 
and that they had to pay the landlords, through the state, j,^^ ^^^^ 
more than the lands which they did receive were worth, question not 
The Edict of Emancipation did not therefore bring either 
peace or prosperity to the peasants. The land question became steadily 
more acute during the next fifty years owing to the vast increase of 
population and the consequent greater pressure upon the land. The 
Russian peasant lived necessarily upon the verge of starvation. 

The emancipation of the serfs is seen, therefore, not to have been 
an unalloyed boon. Yet Russia gained morally in the esteem of other 
nations by abolishing an indefensible wrong. Theoretically, at least, 
every man was free. Moreover, the peasants, though faring ill, yet 
fared better than had the peasants of Prussia and Austria at the time 
of their liberation. 

The abohtion of serfdom .was the greatest act of Alexander II's 
reign, but it was only one of several liberal measures enacted at this 
time of general enthusiasm. A certain amount of local Domestic . 
self-government was granted, reforms in the judicial sys- reforms 
tem were carried through, based upon a study of the systems of Europe 
and the United States, the censorship of the press was relaxed, educa- 
tional facilities were somewhat developed. 

This hopeful era of reform was, however, soon over, and a period of 
reaction began, which characterized the latter half of Alexander's reign 
and ended in his assassination m 1881. There were several E^d of the 
causes for this change: the vacillating character of the era^of^ 
monarch himself, taking fright at his own work; the dis- 
appointment felt by many who had expected a millennium, but who 
found it not; the mtense dislike of the privileged and conservative classes 
for the measures just described. 

Just at this time, when the attitude of the Emperor was changing, 
when public opinion was in this fluid, uncertain state, occurred an event 
which immensely strengthened the reactionary forces, a ^he Polish 
new insurrection of Poland. After the failure of their ^^^^^^^^^^3'^*'°° 
attempt to achieve independence in 1831 the Poles had 
remained quiet, the quiet of despair. As long as Nicholas I lived 
they were ruled with the greatest severity, and they could not but 



564 RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

see the impracticability of any attempt to throw off their chains. But 
the accession of Alexander II aroused hopes of better conditions. The 
spirit of nationalism revived, greatly encouraged by the success of the 
same spirit elsewhere. The Italians had just realized their aspiration, 
the creation of an Italian nation — not solely by their own efforts but 
by the aid of foreign nations. Might not the Poles hope for as much? 
Alexander would not for a moment entertain the favorite idea of the 
Poles, that they should be independent. He emphatically told them 
that such a notion was an idle dream, that they "must abandon all 
thoughts of independence, now and forever impossible." This un- 
compromising attitude, coupled with repressive measures, irritated the 
Poles to the point of desperation. Finally in 1863 an insurrection 
broke out, aiming at independence. It was put down with vigor and 
without mercy. The only hope for the Poles lay in foreign intervention 
but in this they were bitterly disappointed. England, France, and Aus- 
tria intervened three times in their behalf, but only by diplomatic notes, 
making no attempt to give emphasis to their notes by a show of force. 
Russia, seeing this, and supported by Prussia, treated their intervention 
as an impertinence, and proceeded to wreak her vengeance. It was a 
fearful punishment she meted out. 

A process of Russification was now vigorously pursued. The Russian 
language was prescribed for the correspondence of the officials and the 
A policy of lectures of the university professors, and the use of Polish 
Russification ^g^g forbidden in churches, schools, theatres, newspapers, 
in business signs, in fact, everywhere. 

It was not long before Alexander, always vacillating, gave up all 
dallying with reforms and relapsed into the traditional repressive ways 
of Russian monarchs. This reaction aroused intense discontent and 
engendered a movement which threatened the very existence of the 
monarchy itself, namely, Nihilism. 

The Nihilists belonged to the intellectual class of Russia. Reading 
the works of the more radical philosophers and scientists of western 
Rise of Europe, and reflecting upon the foundations of their own 

Nihilism national institutions and conditions, they became most 

destructive critics. They were extreme individualists who tested every 
human institution and custom by reason. As few Russian institutions 
could meet such a test, the Nihilists condemned them all. Theirs was an 
attitude, first of intellectual challenge, then of revolt against the who)e 



THE NIHILIST MOVEMENT 565 

established order. Shortly, Socialism was grafted upon this hatred of all 
established institutions. In the place of the existing society, which must 
be swept away, a new society was to be erected, based on socialistic prin- 
ciples. Thus the movement entered upon a new phase. It ceased to 
be merely critical and destructive. It became constructive as well, in 
5hort,a political party with a positive programme, a party very small but 
resolute and reckless, willing to resort to any means to achieve its aims. 

This party now determined to institute an educational campaign in 
Russia, realizing that nothing could be done unless the millions of peas- 
ants were shaken out of their stolid acquiescence in the Nihilist 
prevalent order which weighed so heavily upon them, propaganda 
This extraordinary movement, called "going in among the people," 
became very active after 1870. Young men and women, all belonging 
to the educated class, and frequently to noble families, became day 
laborers and peasants in order to mingle with the people, to arouse them 
to action, "to found," as one of their documents said, "on the ruins of 
the present social organization the empire of the working classes." They 
showed the self-sacrifice, the heroism of the missionary laboring under 
the most discouragmg conditions. It is estimated that, between 1872 
and 1878, between two and three thousand such missionaries were active 
in this propaganda. Their efforts, however, were not rewarded with 
success. The peasantry remained stolid, if not contented. Moreover, 
this campaign of education and persuasion was broken up wherever 
possible by the ubiquitous and lawless pohce. Many were imprisoned 
or exiled to Siberia. 

A pacific propaganda being impossible, one of violence seemed to 
the more energetic spirits the only alternative. As the Government 
held the people in a subjection unworthy of human beings, a policy of 
as it employed all its engines of power against every one terrorism 
who demanded reform of any kind, as, in short, it ruled by terror, these 
reformers resolved to fight it with terror as the only method possible. 
The "Terrorists '• were not bloodthirsty or cruel by nature. They simply 
believed that no progress whatever could be made in raising Russia 
from her misery except by getting rid of the more unscrupulous officials. 
They perfected their organization and entered upon a period of violence. 
Numerous attempts, often successful, were made to assassinate the high 
officials, chiefs of police and others who had rendered themselves particu- 
larlv odious. In turn many of the revolutionists were executed. 



566 



RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 



Finally the terrorists determined to kill the Czar as the only way 
of overthrowing the whole hated arbitrary and oppressive system. Sev- 
eral attempts were made. In April, 1879, a schoolmaster, 

Attempts • r i: J 

upon the Solovief, fared 

Emperor's five shots at the 

life T7 ( 

Emperor, none 01 
which took effect. In Decem- 
ber of the same year a train on 
which he was supposed to be 
returning from the Crimea was 
wrecked, just as it reached 
Moscow, by a mine placed 
between the raUs. Alexander 
escaped only because he had 
reached the capital secretly 
on an earlier train. The next 
attempt (February, 1880) was 
to kill him while at dinner 
in the Winter Palace in St. 
Petersburg. Dynamite was 
exploded, ten soldiers were 
killed and fifty-three wounded 
in the guardroom directly 
overhead, and the floor of the 
dining room was torn up. 
The Czar narrowly escaped because he did not go to dinner at the 
usual hour. 

St. Petersburg was by this time thoroughly terrorized. Alexander 
now appointed Loris Melikoff practically dictator. Melikoff sought to 
inaugurate a milder regime. He released hundreds of prisoners, and in 
Alexander II ^^^^ cases commuted the death sentence. He urged the 
and Loris Czar to grant the people some share in the government, 
believing that this would kill the Nihilist movement, which 
was a violent expression of the discontent of the nation with the abuses 
of an arbitrary and lawless system of government. He urged that this 
could be done without weakening the principle of autocracy, and that 
thus Alexander would win back the popularity he had enjoyed during 
his early reforming years. After much hesitation and mental perturba- 




Alexander II 



ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER III 567 

tion the Czar ordered, March 13, 1881, MeUkoff's scheme to be pub- 
lished in the official journal. But on that same afternoon, as Assassination 
he was returning from a drive, escorted by Cossacks, a bomb of Alexander 
was thrown at his carriage. The carriage was wrecked, 
and many of his escorts were injured. Alexander escaped as by a mi- 
racle, but a second bomb exploded near him as he was going to aid the 
injured. He was horribly mangled, and died within an hour. Thus 
perished the Czar Liberator. At the same time the hopes of the Liberals 
perished also. This act of supreme violence did not intimidate the suc- 
cessor to the throne, Alexander III, whose entire reign was one of stern 

repression. 

THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER III 

The man who now ascended the throne of Russia was in the full 
flush of magnificent manhood. Alexander III, son of Alexander 
Alexander II, was thirty-six years of age, and of powerful J^^gg^^gg^^ 
physique. His education had been chiefly military. He 
was a man of firm and resolute rather than large or active mind. 

It shortly became clear that he possessed a strong, inflexible character, 

that he was a thorough believer in absolutism, and was determined to 

maintain it undiminished. He assumed an attitude of de- Rigorous 

fiant hostility to innovators and liberals. His reign, which policy of 

. • . iV. u reaction 

lasted from 1881 to 1894, was one of reversion to the older 

ideals of government and of imqualified absolutism. 

The terrorists were hunted down, and their attempts practically 
ceased. The press was thoroughly gagged, university professors and 
students were watched, suspended, exiled, as the case ^^^ 
might be. The reforms of Alexander II were in part un- terrorists 
done, and the secret police, the terrible Third Section, was ^^^^^^ 
greatly augmented. Liberals gave up all hope of any im- 
provement durmg this reign, and waited for better days. Under Alexan- 
der -HI began the inhuman persecutions of the Jews which have been so 
dark a feature of recent Russian history. The great Jewish emigration 
to the United States dates from this time. 

In one sphere only was there any progress in this bleak, stern reign. 
That sphere was the economic. An industrial revolution began then 
which has been carried much further under his successor. Russia had 
been for centuries an agricultural country whose agriculture, moreover, 
was of the primitive type. Whatever industries existed were mainly of 



568 RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

the household kind. Russia was one of the poorest countries in the world, 
her immense resources being undeveloped. Under the system of pro- 
tection adopted by Alexander II, and continued and increased by Alex- 
ander III, industries of a modern kind began to grow up. A tremendous 
impetus was given to this development by the appoint- 
Witte, ment in 1892 as Minister of Finance and Commerce of 

Minister of Sergius de Witte. Witte believed that Russia, the largest 

Finance . . . 

and most populous country in Europe, a world in itself, 

ought to be self-sufi&cient, that as long as it remained chiefly agricultural 
it would be tributary to the industrial nations for manufactured articles, 
that it had abimdant resources, in raw material and in labor, to enable 
it to supply its own needs if they were but developed. He believed that 
Witte's ^^^^ development could be brought about by the adoption 

industrial of a policy of protection. Was not the astonishing industrial 
^° '^^ growth of Germany and of the United States convincing 

proof of the value of such a policy? By adopting it for Russia, by en- 
couraging foreigners to invest heavily in the new protected industries, 
by showing them that their rewards would inevitably be large, he began 
and carried far the economic transformation of his country. Immense 
amounts of foreign capital poured in and Russia advanced industrially 
in the closing decade of the nineteenth century with great swiftness. 

One thing more was necessary. Russia's greatest lack was good means 
of communication. She now undertook to supply this want by exten- 
Extensive ^^^^ railway building. For some years before Witte as- 
raiiway sumed ofi&ce, Russia was building less than 400 miles of 

cons rue ion railway a year; from that time on for the rest of the 
decade, she built nearly 1,400 miles a year. The most stupendous of 
these undertakings was that of a trunk line connecting Europe with 
the Pacific Ocean, the great Trans-Siberian railroad. For this Russia 
borrowed vast sums of money in western Europe, principally in France. 
Begun in 1891, the road was formally opened in 1902. It has reduced 
the time and cost of transportation to the East about one-half. In 
1909 Russia possessed over 41,000 miles of railway, over 28,000 of which 
were owned and operated by the Government. 

This tremendous change in the economic life of the Empire was des- 
Rise of labor tined to have momentous consequences, some of which 
problems were quickly apparent. Cities grew rapidly, a large laboring 

class developed, and labor problems of the kind familiar to Western 



ACCESSION OF NICHOLAS H 



569 



countries, socialistic theories, spread among the working people; also 
a new middle class of capitalists and manufacturers was created which 
might some day demand a share in the government. These new forces 
would, in time, threaten the old, illiberal, unprogressive regime which 
had so long kept Russia stagnant and profoundly unhappy. That the 

old system was being undermined 
was not, however, apparent, and 
might not have been for many 
years had not Russia, ten years 
after Alexander's death, become 
involved in a disastrous and hu- 
miliating war with Japan. 

THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS II 

Alexander III died in 1894, 
and was succeeded by his son, 
Nicholas II, then twenty-six 
years of age. The hope was gen- 
eral that a milder Accession of 
regime might now be Nicholas II 
introduced. This, however, was 
not to be. For ten years the 
young Czar pursued the policy of his father with scarcely a variation 
save in the direction of greater severity. A suggestion that representa- 
tive institutions might be granted was declared "a senseless dream." 
The government was not one of law but of arbitrary power. Its instru- 
ments were a numerous and corrupt body of state officials and a ruth- 
less, active police. No one was secure against an est, imprisonment, 
exile. The most elementary personal rights were lacking. 

The professional and educated man was in an intolerable position. 
If a professor in a university, he was watched by the police, and was 
likely to be removed at any moment as was Professor persecution 
Milyoukov, an historian of distinguished attainments, for 0^^*^*^^^^^^'^^^: 
no other reason than "generally noxious tendencies." If 
an editor, his position was even more precarious, unless he was utterly 
servile to the authorities. It was a suffocating atmosphere for any man 
of the slightest intellectual independence, living m the ideas of the pres- 
ent age. The censorship grew more and more rigorous, and included 




XlCHOLAS II 



570 RUSSIA TO THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

such books as Green's History of England, and Bryce's American Com- 
monwealth. Arbitrary arrests of all kinds increased from year to year 
as the difficulty of thoroughly bottling up Russia increased. Students 
were the objects of special police care, as it was the young and ardent 
and educated who were most indignant at this senseless despotism. 
Many of them disappeared, in one year as many as a fifth of those in 
the University of Moscow, probably sent to Siberia or to prisons in 
Europe. 

A government of this kind was not likely to err from excess of sym- 
pathy with the subject nationalities, such as the Poles and the Finns. 
Attack upon In Finland, indeed, its arbitrary course attained its climax, 
the Finns Finland had been acquired by Russia in 1809, but on lib- 

eral terms. It was not incorporated in Russia, but continued a Grand 
Duchy, with the Emperor of Russia as simply Grand Duke. It had its 
own Parliament, its Fundamental Laws or constitution, to which the 
Grand Duke swore fidelity. These Fundamental Laws could not be 
altered or interpreted or repealed except with the consent of the Diet and 
the Grand Duke. Finland was a constitutional state, governing itself, 
connected with Russia in the person of its sovereign. It had its own 
army, its own currency and postal system. Under this liberal regime it 
prospered greatly, its population increasing from less than a million to 
nearly three millions by the close of the century, and was, according to 
an historian of Russia, at least thirty years in advance of that country 
in all the appliances of material civilization. The sight of this country 
enjoying a constitution of its own and a separate organization was an 
offense to the men controlling Russia. They wished to sweep away all 
distinctions between the various parts of the Emperor's dominions, to 
unify, to Russify. The attack upon the liberties of the Finns began 

under Alexander III. It was carried much further by 
Abrogation . . . . , 

of the Nicholas II, who, on February 15, 1899, issued an imperial 

Finnish con- manifesto which really abrogated the constitution of that 
stitution , 

country. The Finns began a stubborn but apparently 

hopeless struggle for their historic rights with the autocrat of one 

hundred and forty million men. 

Under such a system as that just described men could be terrorized 

into silence; they could not be made contented. Disaffection of all 

classes, driven into subterranean channels, only increased, awaiting 

the time for explosion. That time came with the disastrous defeat of 



RELATIONS WITH THE ORIENT 571 

Russia in the war with Japan in 1904-5, a landmark in contemporary 
history. 

To understand recent events in Russia it is necessary to trace the 
course of that war whose consequences have been profound, and to 
show the significance of that conflict we must interrupt this j^jg^ ^^ ^^^^ 
narrative of Russian history in order to give an account of Far Eastern 
the recent evolution of Asia, the rise of the so-called Far °°^ 

Eastern Question, and the interaction of Occident and Orient upon each 
other. 

REFERENCES 

I 

Russia in 1815: Skrine, Expansion of Russia, pp. 8-13; Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, Vol. X, Chap. XIII, pp. 413-439. 

Reign of Alexander I: Skrine, pp. 15-85. 

Reign of Nicholas I: Skrine, pp. 86-164. 

Alexander II and the Emancipation of the Serfs: Skrine, pp. 178-191; 
Wallace, Russia, Chaps. XXVII-XXXIII; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XI, 
pp. 613-627. 

Alexander II and Nihilism: Rose, Development of the European Nations, Vol. I, 
pp. 344-366; Skrine, pp. 214-222, 265-270; WaUace, Chap. XXXIV; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. XI, pp. 628-630. 

Reign of Alexander III: Skrine, pp. 271-308; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, pp. 312-321. 

Reign of Nicholas II: Skrine, pp. 309-348; WaUace, Chaps. XXXVI-XXXIX. 

Poland Since 1862: Phillips, Poland (Home University Library), pp. 125-250; 
Orvis, A Brief History of Poland, Chaps. VHI-X. 



CHAPTER XXXV 
THE FAR EAST 

ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND RUSSIA IN ASIA 

Europe has not only taken possession of Africa, but she has taken 

possession of large parts of Asia, and presses with increasing force upon 

the remainder. England and France dominate southern 
England, 
France, and Asia by their control, the former of India and Burma, the 

Russia in latter of a large part of Indo-China. Russia, on the other 

Asia o J. 

hand, dominates the north, from the Ural Mountains to 

the Pacific Ocean. As far as geographical extent is concerned, she is 
far more an Asiatic power than a European, which, indeed, is also true 
of England and of France, and she has been an Asiatic power much 
longer than they, for she began her expansion into Asia before the Pil- 
grims came to America. For nearly three centuries Russia has been a 
great Asiatic state, while England has been a power in India for only 
half that time. 

It was not until the nineteenth century, however, that Russia began 
to devote serious attention to Asia as a field for colonial and commercial 
Russian expansion. Siberia was regarded merely as a convenient 

expansion prison to which to send her disaffected or criminal citizens. 
Events in Europe have caused her to concentrate her attention more 
and more upon her Asiatic development. She has sought there what 
she had long been seeking in Europe, but without avail, because of the 
opposition she encountered, namely, contact with the ocean, free outlet 
Russia seeks ^^ ^^^ world. Russia's coast line, either in Europe or Asia, 
access to the had no harbors free from ice the year round. Blocked 
^^^ decisively and repeatedly from obtaining such in Europe 

at the expense of Turkey, she has sought them in Eastern Asia. This 
ambition explains her Asiatic policies. In 1858 she acquired from China 
the whole northern bank of the Amur and two years later more territory 
farther south, the Maritime Province, at the southern point of which 
she founded as a naval base Vladivostok, which means the Dominator 

572 



CONDITIONS IN CHINA 573 

of the East. But Vladivostok was not ice-free in winter. Russia still 
lacked her longed-for outlet. 

CHINA 

Between Russian Asia on the north, and British and French Asia 
on the south, lies the oldest empire of the world, China, and one more 
extensive than Europe and probably more populous, with The civiiiza- 
more than 400,000,000 inhabitants. It is a land of great ^°^ °^ China 
navigable rivers, of vast agricultural areas, and of mines rich in coal 
and metals, as yet largely undeveloped. The Chinese were a highly 
civilized people long before the Europeans were. They preceded the 
latter by centuries in the use of the compass, powder, porcelain, paper. 
As early as the sixth century of our era they knew the art of printing 
from movable w^ooden blocks. They have long been famous for their 
work in bronze, in wood, in lacquer, for the marvels of their silk manu- 
facture. As a people laborious and intelligent, they have always been 
devoted to the peaceful pursuits of industry, and have despised the arts 
of war. 

China had always lived a life of isolation, despising the outside world. 
She had no diplomatic representatives in any foreign country, nor were 
any foreign ambassadors resident in Peking. Foreigners The isoia- 
were permitted to trade in only one Chinese port. Canton, *'°° °^ ^^°^ 
and even there only under vexatious and humiliating conditions. 

It was not likely that a policy of such isolation could be permanently 
maintained in the modern age, and as the nineteenth century progressed 
it was gradually shattered. The Chinese desired nothing better than 
to be left alone. But this was not to be. By a long series of aggressions 
extending to our own day various European powers have forced China to 
enter into relations with them, to make concessions of territory, of trad- 
ing privileges, of diplomatic intercourse. In this story of European 
aggression the Opium War waged by Great Britain against The Opium 
China from 1840 to 1842 was decisive, as showing how easy ^^ 
it was to conquer China. The Chinese had forbidden the importa- 
tion of opium, as injurious to their people. But the British did not 
wish to give up a trade in which the profits were enormous. The 
war, the first between China and a European power, lasted two years 
and ended in • the victory of Great Britain. The consequences, in forc- 
ing the doors of China open to European influence, were important. 



574 



THE FAR EAST 



By the Treaty of Nanking, 1842, she was forced to pay a large in- 
The treaty demnity, to open to British trade four ports in addition 
ports iQ Canton, and to cede the island of Hong Kong, near Can- 

ton, to England outright. Hong Kong has since become one of the 
most important naval and commercial stations of the British Empire. 

Other powers now proceeded to take advantage of the British success. 
The United States sent Caleb Cushing to make a commercial treaty 
with China in 1844, and before long France, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, 
and Portugal established trade centers at the five treaty ports. The 
number of such ports has since been increased to over forty. China was 
obliged to abandon her policy of isolation and to send and receive 
ambassadors. 

A period of critical importance in China's relations with Europe 
began in the last decade of the nineteenth century as a result of a war 
with Japan in 1894-5. To appreciate this war it is necessary to give 
some account of the previous evolution of Japan. 

JAPAN 

The rise of Japan as the most forceful state in the Orient is a chapter 

of very recent history, of absorbing interest, and of great significance to 

the present age. Accomplished in the last third of the 

nineteenth century, it has already profoundly altered the 

conditions of international politics, and seems likely to be a factor of 

increasing moment in the future evolution of the world. 

Japan is an archipelago consisting of several large islands and about 
four thousand sm.aller ones. It covered, in 1894, an area of 147,000 
Description square miles, an area smaller than that of California. The 
of Japan main islands form a crescent, the northern point being op- 

posite Siberia, the southern turning in toward Korea. Between it and 
Asia is the Sea of Japan, The country is very mountainous, its most 
famous peak, Fujiyama, rising to a height of 12,000 feet. Of volcanic 
origin, numerous craters are still active. Earthquakes are not uncom- 
mon, and have determined the character of domestic architecture. The 
coast line is much indented, and there are many good harbors. The 
Japanese call their country Nippon, or the Land of the Rising Sim. 
Only about one-sbcth of the land is under cultivation, owing to its moun- 
tainous character, and owing to the prevalent mode of farming. Yet 
into this small area is crowded a population of about fifty millions, 



EMERGENCE OF JAPAN 575 

which is larger than that of Great Britain or France, It is no occasion 
for surprise that the Japanese have desired territorial expansion. 

The people of Japan derived the beginnings of their civiHzation from 
China, but in many respects they differed greatly from the Chinese. 
The virtues of the soldier were held in high esteem. Patri- Japanese 
otism was a passion, and with it went the spirit of unques- civilization 
tioning self-sacrifice. " Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy country," 
was a command of the Shinto religion, and was universally obeyed. An 
art-loving and pleasure-loving people, they possessed active minds and 
a surprising power of assimilation which they were to show on a national 
and momentous scale. 

The Japanese had followed the same policy of seclusion as had the 
Chinese. Japan had for centuries been almost hermetically Japanese 
sealed against the outside world. On the peninsula of policy 
Deshima there was a single trading station which carried ° ^^° **^°° 
on a slight commerce with the Dutch. This was Japan's sole point 
of contact with the outside world for over two centuries. 

This imnatural seclusion was rudely disturbed by the arrival in 
Japanese waters of an American fleet under Commodore Perry in 1853, 
sent out by the government of the United States. American Commodore 
sailors, engaged in the whale fisheries in the Pacific, were P^^ry 
now and then wrecked on the coasts of Japan, where they generally re- 
ceived cruel treatment. Perry was instructed to demand of the ruler of 
Japan protection for American sailors and property thus wrecked, and 
permission for American ships to put into one or more Japanese ports, 
in order to obtain necessary supplies and to dispose of their cargoes. He 
presented these demands to the government. He announced further 
that if his requests were refused, he would open hostilities. The govern- 
ment granted certain immediate demands, but insisted that the general 
question of opening relations with a foreign state required careful con- 
sideration. Perry consented to allow this discussion and sailed away, 
stating that he would return the following year for the final answer. 
The discussion of the general question on the part of the govern- 
ing classes was very earnest. Some believed in maintaining the old 
policy of complete exclusion of foreigners. Others, how- p^u^y ^f 
ever, believed this impossible, owing to the manifest mill- isolation 
tary superiority of the foreigners. They thought it well to 
enter into relations with them in order to learn the secret of that 



576 THE FAR EAST 

superiority, and then to appropriate it for Japan. They believed this 
the only way to insure, in the long run, the independence and power of 
their country. This opinion finally prevailed, and when Perry reap- 
peared a treaty was made with him (1854) by which two ports were 
opened to American ships. This was a mere beginning, but the impor- 
tant fact was that Japan had, after two centuries of seclusion, entered 
into relations with a foreign state. Later other and more liberal treaties 
were concluded with the United States and with other countries. 

The reaction of these events upon the internal evolution of Japan 
was remarkable. They produced a very critical situation, and precipi- 
tated a civil war, the outcome of which discussion and conflict was the 
triumph of the party that believed in change. After 1868 Japan revolu- 
Raoid trans- tionized her political and social institutions in a few years, 
formation of adopted with ardor the material and scientific civilization 
Japan ^£ ^-^^ West, made herself in these respects a European 

state, and entered as a result upon an international career, which has 
already profoundly modified the world, and is likely to be a constant and 
an increasing factor in the future development of the East. So complete, 
so rapid, so hearty an appropriation of an alien civilization, a civiliza- 
tion against which every precaution of exclusion had for centuries been 
taken, is a change unique in the history of the world, and notable for 
the audacity and the intelligence displayed. The entrance upon this 
course was a direct result of Perry's expedition. The Japanese revolu- 
tion will always remain an astounding story. Once begun it proceeded 
Adootion of with great rapidity. In place of the former military class 
European arose an army based on European models. Military ser- 

institutions ^-^^ ^^^ declared imiversal and obligatory in 1872. The 
German system, which has revolutionized Europe, began to revolu- 
tionize Asia. 

The first railroad was begun in 1870 between Tokio and Yokohama. 
Thirty years later there were over 3,600 miles in operation. To-day 
there are 6,000. The educational methods of the West were also intro- 
Reform in duced. A university was established at Tokio, and later 
education another at Kioto. Professors from abroad were induced to 

accept important positions in them. Students showed great enthusi- 
asm in pursuing the new learning. Public schools were created rapidly, 
and by 1883 about 3,300,000 pupils were receiving education. In 1873 
the European calendar was adopted. The codes of law were thoroughly 



WAR BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN 577 

remodeled after an exhaustive study of European systems. Finally a 

constitution was granted in 1880, after eight years of careful , 

. <=> J Japan be- 

elaboration and study of foreign models. It established a comes a con- 
parliament of two chambers, a House of Peers (the so- stitutionai 
called "Elder Statesmen") and a House of Representatives. 
The vote was given to men of twenty-five years or older 'who paid a 
certain property tax. The constitution reserves very large powers for 
the monarch. Parliament met for the first time in 1S90. The test of 
reformed Japan came in the last decade of the nineteenth yf^^.^ ^jth 
century and the first of the twentieth, and proved the solid- China and 
ity of this amazing achievement. During those years she "^^^* 
fought and defeated two powers apparently much stronger than herself, 
China and Russia, and took her place as an equal in the family of nations. 

CHINO-JAPANESE WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 

A waT in which the efiiciency of the transformed Japan was clearly 
established broke out with China in 1894. The immediate cause was the 
relations of the two powers to Korea. Korea was a king- c^use of the 
dom, but both China and Japan claimed suzerainty over war with 
it. Japan had an interest in extending her claims, as she °^ 
desired larger markets for her products. Friction was frequent between 
the two countries concerning their rights in Korea, as a consequence 
of which Japan began a war in which, with her modern army, she was 
easily victorious over her giant neighbor, whose armies fought in the old 
Asiatic style with a traditional Asiatic equipment. The Japanese drove 
the Chinese out of Korea, invaded Manchuria, where they seized the 
fortress of Port Arthur, the strongest position in eastern Asia, occupied 
the Liao-tung peninsula on which that fortress is located, Treaty of 
and prepared to advance toward Peking. The Chinese, Shimonosekl 
alarmed for their capital, agreed to make peace, and signed the Treaty 
of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895), by which they ceded Port Arthur, the 
Liao-tung peninsula, the Island of Formosa, and the Pescadores Islands 
to Japan, also agreeing to pay a large war indemnity of two hundred 
million taels (about $175,000,000). China recognized the complete 
independence of Korea. 

But in the hour of her triumph Japan was thwarted by a European 
intervention, and deprived of the fruits of her victory. Russia now 
entered in decisive fashion upon a scene where she was to play a promi- 



578 THE FAR EAST 

nent part for the next ten years. She soon showed that she entertained 
plans directly opposed to those of the Japanese. She in- 
of Russia, duced France and Germany to join her in forcing them to 
France, and gjyg ^p the most important rewards of their victory, in 
ordering them to surrender the Liao-tung peninsula on the 
ground that the possession of Port Arthur threatened the independence 
of Peking and would be a perpetual menace "to the peace of the Far 
East." This was a bitter blow to the Japanese. Recognizing, however, 
y that it would be folly to oppose the three great military 

relinquishes powers of Europe, they yielded, restored Port Arthur and 
Port Arthur ^^^^ peninsula to China, and withdrew from the mainland, 
indignant at the action of the powers, and resolved to increase their 
army and navy and develop their resources, believing that their enemy 
in Asia was Russia, with whom a day of reckoning must come sooner or 
later, and confirmed in this belief by events that crowded thick and fast 
in the next few years. 

The insincerity of the powers in talking about the integrity of China 
and the peace of the East was not long in manifesting itself. 

In 1897 two German missionaries were murdered in the province of 
Shantung. The German Emperor immediately sent a fleet to demand 
German redress. As a result Germany secured (March 5, 1898) 

aggression f j-qj^ China a ninety-nine year lease of the fine harbor of 
Kiauchau, with a considerable area round about, and extensive com- 
mercial and financial privileges in the whole province of Shantung. 
Indeed, that province became a German "sphere of influence." 

This action encouraged Russia to make further demands. She acquired 
from China (March 27, 1898) a lease for twenty-five years of Port Arthur, 
Russia se- ^^^ strongest position in eastern Asia, which, as she had 
cures Port stated to Japan in 1895, enabled the possessor to threaten 
Arthur Peking and to disturb the peace of the Orient. France and 

England also each acquired a port on similar terms of lease. The powers 
also forced China to open a dozen new ports to the trade of the world, 
and to grant extensive rights to establish factories and build railways 
and develop mines. 

It seemed, in the summer of 1898, that China was about to un- 
dergo the fate of Africa, that it was to be carved up among the va- 
rious powers. This tendency was checked by the rise of a bitterly 
anti-foreign party, occasioned by these acts of aggression, and culmi- 



RUSSIA AND MANCHURIA 579 

nating in the Boxer insurrections of 1900. These grew rapidly, and 
spread over northern China. Their aim was to drive the ^j^ 
"foreign devils into the sea," Scores of missionaries and "Boxer" 
their families were killed, and hundreds of Chinese converts "^o^^'"^'^* 
murdered in cold blood. Finally, the Legations of the various powers in 
Peking were besieged, and for weeks Europe and America feared that all 
the foreigners there would be massacred. In the presence of this common 
danger the powers were obliged to drop their jealousies and rivalries, 
and send a relief expedition, consisting of troops from Japan, Russia, Ger- 
many, France, Great Britain, and the United States. The Legations 
were rescued, just as their resources were exhausted by the Rescue 
siege of two months (June 13-August 14, 1900). The in- of the 
ternational army suppressed the Boxer movement after a ^^^ ^°^^ 
short campaign, forced the Chinese to pay a large indemnity, and to 
punish the ringleaders. In forming this international army, the powers 
had agreed not to acquire territory, and at the close of the war they 
guaranteed the integrity of China. Whether this would mean anything 
remained to be seen. 

The integrity of China had been invoked in 1895 and ignored in the 
years following. Russia, France, and Germany had appealed to it as a 

reason for demanding the evacuation of Port Arthur by , 

° Japan 

the Japanese in 1895. Soon afterward Germany had vir- indignant 

tually annexed a port and a province of China, and France f^^ appre- 

-' .111 hensive 

had also acquired a port in the south. Then came the most 

decisive act, the securing of Port Arthur by Russia. This caused a wave 
of indignation to sweep over Japan, and the people of that country were 
with difficulty kept in check by the prudence of their statesmen. The 
acquisition of Port Arthur by Russia meant that now she had a harbor 
ice-free the year round. That Russia did not look upon her possession 
as merely a short lease, but as a permanent one, was Russian 
unmistakably shown by her conduct. She constructed a activity in 
railroad south from Harbin, connecting with the Trans- 
Siberian, She threw thousands of troops into Manchuria; she set about 
immensely strengthening Port Arthur as a fortress, and a considerable 
.fleet was stationed there. To the Japanese all this seemed to prove that 
she purposed ultimately to annex the immense province of Manchuria, 
and later probably Korea, which would give her a larger number of ice- 
free harbors and place her in a dominant position on the Pacific, men- 



58o THE FAR EAST 

acing, the Japanese felt, the very existence of Japan. Moreover, this 
would absolutely cut off all chance of possible Japanese expansion in 
these directions, and of the acquisition of their markets for Japanese 
industries. The ambitions of the two powers to dominate the East 
clashed, and, in addition, to Japan the matter seemed to involve her 
permanent safety, even in her island empire. 

RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 

Japan's prestige at this time was greatly increased by a treaty con- 
cluded with England in 1902 establishing a defensive alliance, each power 
promising the other aid in certain contingencies. In case 
Japanese either should become involved in war the other would re- 

Treaty of main neutral but would abandon its neutrality and come 

1902 ... . 

to the assistance of its ally if another power should join 
the enemy. This meant that if France or Germany should aid Russia 
in a war with Japan, then England would aid Japan. In a war between 
Russia and Japan alone England would be neutral. The treaty was 
therefore of great practical importance to Japan, and it also increased 
her prestige. For the first time in history, an Asiatic power had entered 
into an alliance with a European power on a plane of entire equality. 
Japan had entered the family of nations and it was remarkable evidence 
of her importance that Great Britain saw advantage in an alliance with 
her. Meanwhile Russia had a large army in Manchuria and a lease- 
hold of the strong fortress and naval base of Port Arthur. She had def- 
initely promised to withdraw from Manchuria when order should be 
Japan makes restored, but she declined to make the statement more 
war upon explicit. Her military preparations increasing all the while, 

the Japanese demanded of her the date at which she in- 
tended to withdraw her troops from Manchuria, order having apparently 
been restored. ' Negotiations between the two powers dragged on from 
August, 1903 to February, 1904. Japan, believing that Russia was merely 
trying to gain time to tighten her grip on Manchuria by elaborate and 
intentional delay and evasion, and to prolong the discussion until she 
had sufficient troops in the province to be able to throw aside the mask, 
suddenly broke off diplomatic relations and commenced hostilities. On 
the night of the 8th-9th of February, 1904, the Japanese torpedoed a 
part of the Russian fleet before Port Arthur and threw their armies into 
Korea. 



THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR 581 

The Russo-Japanese War, thus begun, lasted from February, 1904 to 
September, 1905. It was fought on both land and sea. Russia had two 
fleets in Asiatic waters, one at Port Arthur and one at Vladi- Russo-Ta - 
vostok. Her land connection with eastern Asia was by the anese War, 
long single track of the Trans-Siberian railway. Japan sue- ^04-1905 
ceeded in bottling the Port Arthur fleet at the very outset of the war. 
Controlling the Asiatic waters she was able to transport armies and 
munitions to the scene of the land warfare with only slight losses at the 
hands of the Vladivostok fleet. One army drove the Russians out of 
Korea, back from the Yalu. Another vmder General Oku landed on the 
Liaotung peninsula and cut off the connections of Port Arthur with 
Russia. It attempted to take Port Arthur by assault, but was unable 
to carry it, and finaUy began a siege. This siege was con- siege of 
ducted by General Nogi, General Oku being engaged in ^^"^ Arthur 
driving the Russians back upon Mukden. The Russian General Kuro- 
patkin marched south from Mukden to relieve Port Arthur. South of 
Mukden great battles occurred, that of Liao-yang, engaging probably 
half a million men and lasting several days, resulting in a victory of the 
Japanese, who entered Liao-yang September 4, 1904. Their objective 
now was Mukden. Meanwhile, in August, the Japanese had defeated 
disastrously both the Port Arthur and Vladivostok fleets, eliminating 
them from the war. The terrific bombardment of Port Arthur con- 
tinued untU that fortress surrendered after a siege of ten months, costing 
the Japanese 60,000 in kiUed and wounded (January i, 1905). The 
army which had conducted this siege was now able to march northward 
to cooperate with General Oku around Mukden. There several battles 
were fought, the greatest since the Franco-German war of Mukden 
1870, lasting in each case several days. The last, at Muk- captured by 
den (March 6-10, 1905), cost both armies 120,000 men ® apanese 
kifled and wounded in four days' fighting. The Russians were defeated 
and evacuated Mukden, leaving 40,000 prisoners in the hands of the 
Japanese. 

Another incident of the war was the sending out from Russia of a new 
fleet under Admiral Rodjestvensky, which, after a long voy- Destruction 
age around the Cape of Good Hope, was attacked by Ad- ^^*^^^^ 
miral Togo as it entered the Sea of Japan and annihilated fleet, May 
in the great naval battle of the Straits of Tsushima, ^7, 1905 
May 27, 1905. 



582 THE FAR EAST 

The two powers finally consented, at the suggestion of President 
Roosevelt, to send delegates to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to see if 
the war could be brought to a close. The result was the signing of the 
Treaty of PortsmoutR, September 5, 1905. The war between Japan and 
Russia had been fought in lands belonging to neither power, in Korea, 
and principally in Manchuria, a province of China, yet Korea and China 
took no part in the war, were passive spectators, powerless to preserve 
the neutrality of their soil or their independent sovereignty. The war 
had cost each nation about a billion dollars and about 200,000 in killed 
and wounded. 

By the Treaty of Portsmouth Russia recognized Japan's paramount 
interests in Korea, which country, however, was to remain indepen- 
The Treaty dent. Both the Russians and the Japanese were to evacu- 
of Ports- ate Manchuria. Russia transferred to Japan her lease of 

Port Arthur and the Liao-tung peninsula, and ceded the 
southern half of the island of Saghalin. 

Japan thus stood forth the dominant power of the Orient. She had 
expanded in ten years by the annexation of Formosa and Saghalin. 
She has not regarded Korea as independent, but since the close of the 
war has annexed her (1910). She possesses Port Arthur, and her position 
in Manchuria is one which has given rise to much diplomatic discussion. 
She has an army of 600,000 men, equipped with all the most modern 
appliances of destruction, a navy about the size of that of France, 
flourishing industries, and flourishing commerce. The drain upon her 
resources during the period just passed had been tremendous, and, 
appreciating the need of many years of quiet recuperation and upbuild- 
ing, she was willing to make the Peace of Portsmouth. Her financial 
difficulties are great, imposing an abnormally heavy taxation. No 
people has accomplished so vast a transformation in so short a time. 

The lesson of these tremendous events was not lost upon the Chi- 
nese. The victories of Japan, an Oriental state, over a great Occidental 
Reaction of power, as well as over China, convinced many influential 
these events Chinese of the advantage to be derived from an adoption of 
European methods, an appropriation of European knowledge. 
Moreover, they saw that the only way to repel the aggressions of out- 
side powers was to be equipped with the weapons used by the aggressor. 

The leaven of reform began to work fruitfully in the Middle King- 
dom. A military spirit arose in this state, which formerly despised the 



^"■^"^SgA^"" &r.S(J.aunn4^ 



ASIA 

IN 1914 



Miles 

Jfai/roads 



1 I Rassian d] English 
'^Sm French, \II^For/ugues& 
'LZnmi/ch UDSpamA 
nzieermaa ^^UnifedS/afes 
{TZlJapfu/ 




RADICAL CHANGES IN CHINA 583 

martial virtues. Under the direction of Japanese instructors a begin- 
ning was made in the construction of a Cliinese army after Reform in 
European models and equipped in European fashion. The China 
acquisition of western knowledge was encouraged. Students went in 
large numbers to the schools and universities of Europe and America. 
Twenty thousand of them went to Japan. The state encouraged the 
process by throwing open the civil service, that is, official careers, to 
those who obtained honors in examinations in western subjects. Schools 
were opened throughout the country. Even public schools for girls were 
established in some places, a remarkable fact for any Oriental country. 
In 1906 an edict was issued aiming at the prohibition of the use of 
opium within ten years. This edict has since been put into execution 
and the opium trade has finally been suppressed. 

Political reorganization was also undertaken. An imperial commis- 
sion was sent to Europe in 1905 to study the representative systems of 
various countries, and on its return a committee, consist- a constitu- 
ing of many high dignitaries, was appointed to study its t»on promised 
report. In August, 1908 an official edict was issued promising, in the 
name of the Emperor, a constitution in 191 7. 

But the process of transformation was destined to proceed more 
rapidly than was contemplated. Radical and revolutionary parties ap- 
peared upon the scene, demanding a constitution immediately. As the 
Imperial Government could not resist, it granted one in 191 1, estab- 
lishing a parliament with extensive powers. To cap all, in central and 
southern China a republican movement arose and spread rapidly. 
Finally a republic was proclaimed at Nanking and Dr. Sun Yat Sen, 
who had been educated in part in the United States, was elected presi- 
dent. A clash between this republican movement and the ^j^^ Manchu 
imperial party in the north resulted in the forced abdi- dynasty over- 
cation of the boy Emperor (February, 191 2). This was the 
end of the Manchu dynasty. Thereupon Yuan Shih K'ai was chosen 
President of the Republic of China. The situation con- cwna pro- 
fronting the new Republic was extremely grave. Would claimed a 
it prove possible to establish the new regime upon solid ^^" 
and enduring bases, or would the Republic fall a prey to the internal 
dissensions of the Chinese, or to foreign aggression at the hands of 
European powers, or, more Ukely, at the hands of an ambitious and 
mihtaristic neighbor, Japan? These were the secrets of the future. 



584 THE FAR EAST 

REFERENCES 

Early Relations of Europe with China: Douglas, Europe and the Far East, 
pp. 41-90. 

The Opening of Japan: Douglas, pp. 144-168. 

The Revolution in Japan: Douglas, pp. 169-209; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, Chap. XVIII, pp. 537-575. 

The Boxer Movement: Douglas, pp. 323-360; Cambridge Modern History, 
Vol. XII, pp. 517-521. 

Causes of the Russo-Japanese War: Douglas, pp. 409-424; Asakawa, Russo- 
Japanese Conflict, pp. 1-64. 

The Russo-Japanese War: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII, Chap. XIX, 
pp. 576-601. 

The Treaty of Portsmouth: Hershey, The International Law and Diplomacy of 
the Russo-Japanese War, Chap. XIII. 

Conditions in China and Japan: Hornbeck, S. K., Contemporary Politics in the 
Far East (1916). 



CHAPTER XXXVI 
RUSSIA SINCE THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

We are now in a position to follow with some understanding the very 
recent history of Russia, a history at once crowded, intricate, and tur- 
bulent. That history is the record of the reaction of the Japanese War 
upon Russia herself. 

That war was from the beginning unpopular with the Russians. 

Consisting of a series of defeats, its unpopularity only increased, and the 

indignation and wrath of the people were shown during its „ 

X- iT o Unpopular- 

course in many ways. The Government was justly held ity in Russia 

responsible, and was discredited by its failure. As it added °^. ^^% ^^^ . 

, ,. , . with Japan 

greatly to the already existing discontent, the plight m 

which the Government found itself rendered it powerless to repress 

the popular expression of that discontent in the usual summary fashion. 

There was for many months extraordinary freedom of ^ 

-^ -^ Open ex- 

discussion, of the press, of speech, cut short now and then pression of 

by the officials, only to break out later. The war with ^^^ popular 

•' ' ■' discontent 

Japan had for the Government most unexpected and un- 
welcome consequences. The very winds were let loose. 

The Minister of the Interior, in whose hands lay the maintenance 
of public order, was at this time Plehve, one of the most bitterly 
hated men in recent Russian history. Plehve had been Piehve's 
in power since 1902, and had revealed a character of un- ""o"^ regime 
usual harshness. He had incessantly and pitilessly prosecuted hberals 
everywhere, had filled the prisons with his victims, had been the center 
of the movement against the Finns, previously described, and seems to 
have secretly favored the horrible massacres of Jews which occurred at 
this time. He was detested as few men have been. He attempted to 
suppress in the usual manner the rising volume of criticism occasioned 
by the war by applying the same ruthless methods of Assassination 
breaking up meetings, and exiling to Siberia students, pro- °^ ^^^^^^ 
fessional men, laborers. He was killed July, 1904 by a bomb thrown 
under his carriage by a former student. Russia breathed more easily. 

585 



586 RUSSIA SINCE THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

The various liberal and advanced elements of the population uttered 
their desires with a freedom such as they had never known before. They 
A Russian demanded that the reign of law be established in Russia, 
defense of that the era of bureaucratic and police control, recognizing 
assassination ^^ limits of inquisition and of cruelty, should cease. They 
demanded the individual rights usual in western Europe, freedom of 
conscience, of speech, of publication, of public meetings and associations, 
of justice administered by independent judges. They also demanded a 
constitution, to be framed by the people, and a national parliament. 

The Czar showing no inclination to accede to these demands, dis- 
order continued and became more widespread, particularly when the 
Popular dis- shameful facts became known that officials were enrich- 
satisfaction jj^g themselves at the expense of the national honor, sell- 
ing for private gain supplies intended for the army, even seizing the 
funds of the Red Cross Society. The war continued to be a series of 
humiliating and sanguinary defeats, and on January i, 1905, came the 
surrender of Port Arthur after a fearfvil siege. The horror of the civi- 
" Bloody lized world was aroused by an event which occurred a few 

Sunday " weeks later, the slaughter of " Bloody Simday " (January 22, 

1905). Workmen in immense numbers, under the leadership of a radi- 
cal priest. Father Gapon, tried to approach the Imperial Palace in St. 
Petersburg, hoping to be able to lay their grievarices directly before the 
Emperor, as they had no faith in any of the officials. Instead of that 
they were attacked by the Cossacks and the regular troops and the 
result was a fearful loss of life, how large cannot be accurately stated. 

All through the year 1905 tumults and disturbances occurred. Peas- 
ants burned the houses of the nobles. Mutinies in the army and navy 
were frequent. The uncle of the Czar, the Grand Duke Sergius, one of 
the most pronounced reactionaries in the Empire, who had said "the 
people want the stick," was assassinated. Russia was in a state border- 
The Mani- ^^S on anarchy. Finally the Czar sought to reduce the 
festo of Au- ever-mounting spirit of opposition by issuing a manifesto 
^"^ ' concerning the representative assembly which was so ve- 

hemently demanded (August 19, 1905). The manifesto proved a bitter 
disappointment, as it spoke of the necessity of preserving autocratic 
government and promised a representative assembly which should only 
have the power to give advice, not to see that its advice was followed. 
The agitation therefore continued unabated^ or rather increased^ as- 



CREATION OF THE DUMA 587 

suming new and alarming aspects, which exerted in the end a terrific 

pressure upon the Government. Finally the Czar on October 30, 1905, 

issued a new manifesto which promised freedom of conscience, speech, 

meeting, and association, also a representative assembly The Emperor 

or Duma, to be elected on a wide franchise, establishing promises a 

,, . 1111 1 • r representa- 

as an immutable rule that no law can come mto force tive assem- 

without the approval of the Duma," and giving to the ^^^ °^ Duma 

Duma also effective control over the acts of public officials. 

The Czar thus promised the Duma, which was to be a law-making 
body and was to have a supervision over state officials. But 
before it met he proceeded to clip its wings. He issued a ^j^g council 
decree constituting the Council of the Empire, that is, a of the 
body consisting largely of official appointees from the bu- ™P"^^ 
reaucracy, or of persons associated with the old order of things, as a 
kind of Upper Chamber of the legislature, of which the Duma should 
be the Lower. Laws must have the consent of both Council and 
Duma before being submitted to the Czar for approval. 

The elections to the Duma were held in March and April, igo6, and 
resulted in a large majority for the Constitutional Democrats, popularly 
called the "Cadets." In the name of the Czar certain The "organic 
"organic laws" were now issued, laws that could not be Jaws" 
touched by the Duma. Thus the powers of that body were again 
restricted, before it had even met. 

The Duma was opened by Nicholas II in person with elaborate 
ceremony, May 10, 1906. It was destined to have a short and stormy 
life. It showed from the beginning that it desired a com- opening of 
prehensive reform of Russia along the well-knoWn lines of the Duma, 
Western liberalism. It was combated by the court and ^^ ' 
bureaucratic parties, which had not been able to prevent its meeting, 
but which were bent upon rendering it powerless, and were only 
waiting for a favorable time to secure its abolition. It demanded 
that the Council of the Empire, the second chamber. Demands 
should be reformed, as it was under the complete con- of the 
trol of the Emperor, and was thus able to nullify the "" 
work of the people's chamber. It demanded that the ministers be 
made responsible to the Duma as the only way of giving the people 
control over the officials. It demanded the aboHtion of martial law 
throughout the Empire, under cover of which all kinds of crimes were 



588 RUSSIA SINCE THE WAR WITH JAPAN 

being perpetrated by the governing classes. It passed a bill abolishing 
capital punishment. As the needs of the peasants were most pressing, 
it demanded that the lands belonging to the state, the crown, and 
the monasteries be given to them on long lease. 

The Dum§, lasted a little over two months. Its debates were marked 
by a high degree of intelligence and by frequent displays of eloquence, 
The impo- ^^ which several peasants distinguished themselves. It 
tence of the criticised the abuses of the Government freely and scath- 
"™^ ingly. Its sessions were often stormy, the attitude of the 

ministers frequently contemptuous. It was foiled in all its attempts at 
reform by the Council of the Empire, and by the Czar. 

The crucial contest was over the responsibility of ministers. The 
Duma demanded this as the only way of giving the people an effective 
participation in the government. The Czar steadily refused. A dead- 
lock ensued. The Czar cut the whole matter short by dissolving the 
Duma, on July 22, 1906, expressing himself as "cruelly disappointed" 
by its actions, and ordering elections for a new Duma. 

The second Duma was opened by the Czar March 5, 1907. It did 
not work to the satisfaction of the Government. Friction between it 
The second and the ministry developed early and steadily increased. 
Duma Finally the Government arrested sixteen of the members 

and indicted many others for carrying on an alleged revolutionary 
propaganda. This was, of course, a vital assault upon the integrity of 
the assembly, a gross infringement upon even the most moderate consti- 
tutional liberties. Preparing to contest this high-handed action, the 
Duma was desolved on June 16, 1907, and a new one ordered to be 
elected in September, and to meet in November. An imperial manifesto 
was issued at the same time altering the electoral law in most sweep- 
ing fashion, and practically bestowing the right of choosing 
alters the ' the large majority of the members upon about 130,000 

electoral landowners. This also was a grave infringement upon the 

svstcm 

constitutional liberties hitherto granted, which had, among 

other things, promised that the electoral law should not be changed 
Vv^ithout the consent of the Duma. 

The Government declared by word and by act that the autocracy of 
The third the ruler was undiminished. Illegalities of the old, fa- 

Duma miliar kind were committed freely by officials. Reaction 

ruled unchecked. The third Duma, elected on a very limited and plu- 



THE TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATISM 589 

tocratic suffrage, was opened on November 14, 1907. It was composed 
in large measure of reactionaries, of large landowners. It proved a 
docile assembly. 

The Government has not yet dared to abolish the Duma outright, as 
urged by the reactionaries. The Duma still exists, but is rather a con- 
sultative than a legislative body. With the mere passage of time it 
takes on more and more the character of a permanent institution, 
exerting a feeble influence on the national life. However, The triumph 
the government of Russia is practically what it was before °^ reaction 
the war with Japan, what it was all through the nineteenth century. 
The tremendous struggle for liberty has thus far failed. The former 
governing classes have recovered control of the state, after the stormy 
years from 1904 to 1907, and have applied the former principles. Among 
these have been renewed attacks upon the Finns, increasingly severe 
measures against the Poles, and savage treatment of the Jews. Russia 
is still wedded to her idols, or at least her idols have not been over- 
thrown. Her mediaeval past is still the strongest force in the state, to 
which it still gives a thoroughly mediaeval tone. Whether the war of 
1914 will result in accomplishing what the war with Japan began but 
did not achieve, a sweeping reformation of the institution's and policies, 
ambitions and mental outlook of the nation, will be known later. At 
present it is certainly unknown. 

REFERENCES 

The Annual Register; The International Year Book; Statesman's .Year Book. 
Volumes since 1905. Sections on Russia. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

THE PEACE MOVEMENT 

The contemporary world, to a degree altogether unprecedented in 
history, has been dominated by the thought of war, by extraordinary 
preparations for war, and by zealous and concerted efforts to prevent 
war. Finally a conflict, which staggers the imagination and beggars de- 
scription and whose issues are incalculable, has come and is clamping 
the entire world in its iron grip. It is a ghastly outcome of a century of 
development rich beyond compare in many lines. It is, however, not 
inexplicable and it is important for us 1o see how so melancholy, so 
sinister a turn has been given to the destinies of the race. 

The rise and development of the militaristic spirit have been shown 
in the preceding pages. The Prussian military system, marked by scien- 
Spread of tific thoroughness and efficiency, has been adopted by most 
nuiitaxism ^f ^]^g coimtries of the Continent. Europe became in the 
last quarter of the nineteenth century what she had never been before, 
literally an armed continent. The rivalry of the nations to have the most 
perfect instruments of destruction, the strongest army, and the strongest 
navy, became one of the most conspicuous features of the modern world. 
Ships of war were made so strong that they could resist attack. New 
projectiles of terrific force were consequently required and the torpedo 
was invented. A new agency would be useful to discharge this missile 
and thus the torpedo boat was developed. To neutralize it was therefore 
the immediate necessity and the torpedo-boat destroyer was the result. 
Boats that could navigate beneath the waters would have an obvious 
advantage over those that could be seen, and the submarine was 
provided for this need. And now we are taking possession of the air 
with dirigible balloons and aeroplanes, as aerial auxiliaries of war. Thus 
man's immemorial occupation, war, gains from the advance of science 
and contributes to that advance. The wars of the past were fought on 

590 



THE PEACE MOVEMENT 59i 

the surface of the globe. Those of the present are fought in the heavens 
above, and in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. 

But all this is tremendously expensive. It costs more than a hun- 
dred thousand dollars to construct the largest coast defense gun, which 
carries over twenty miles, and its single discharge costs a ^^^^ ^^ 
thousand dollars. Fifteen millions are necessary to build a modem 
dreadnought, and now we have super-dreadnoughts, more ^"^T"^"*^ 
costly still and more destructive. The debts of European 
countries were nearly doubled during the last thirty years, largely 
because of military expenditures. The military budgets of European 
states in a time of "armed peace" amounted to not far from a billion 
and a half dollars a year, half as much again as the indemnity exacted 
by Germany from France m 1871. The burden became so heavy, the 
rivalry so keen that it gave rise to a movement which aimed to end it. 
The very aggravation of the evil prompted a desire for its cure. 

In the summer of 1898 the civil and mUitary authorities of Russia 
were considermg how they might escape the necessity of replacing an 
antiquated kind of artillery with a more modern but very expensive 
one. Out of this discussion emerged the idea that it would be desirable, 
if possible, to check the increase of armaments. This could not be 
achieved by one nation alone but must be done by all, if ^^^^^^^^^ H 
done at all. The outcome of these discussions was the and the 
issuance by the Czar, Nicholas II, on August 24, 1898, of ^"^'^^^'"^ts" 
a communication to the powers, suggesting that an inter- 
national conference be held to consider the general problem. 

The conference, thus suggested by the Czar, was held at the Hague 
in 1899. Twenty-six of the fifty-nine sovereign governments of the 
world were represented by one hundred members. Twenty ^^^ ^.^^^ 
of these states were European, four were Asiatic — China, Peace Con- 
Japan, Persia, and Siam, - and two were American - the ^^^""^1^1^ 
United States and Mexico. The Conference was opened 
on May 18 and closed on July 29. . , . r • 1 

The official utterances of most of the delegates emphasized the fright- 
ful burden and waste of this vast expenditure upon the equipment for 
war, when all nations, big and little, needed all their re- Criticism of 
sources for the works of peace, for education, for social -^^^--^ 
improvement in many directions. Most of the delegates emphasized 
also the loss entailed by compulsory military service, removing millions 



592 THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

and millions of young men from their careers, from productive activity 
for several precious years. A German delegate, on the other hand, 
denied all this, denied that the necessary weight of charges and taxes 
portended approaching ruin and exhaustion, declared that the general 
welfare was increasing all the while, and that compulsory military service 
was not regarded in his country as a heavy burden but as a sacred and 
patriotic duty to which his country owed its existence, its prosperity, and 
its future. 

With such differences of opinion the Conference was unable to reach 
any agreement upon the fundamental question which had given rise to 
its convocation. It could only adopt a resolution expressing the belief 
that "a limitation of the military expenses which now burden the world 
is greatly to be desired in the interests of the material and moral well- 
being of mankind" and the desire that the governments "shall take up 
the study of the possibility of an agreement concerning the limitation of 
armed forces on land and sea, and of military budgets." 

With regard to arbitration the Conference was more successful. It 

established a Permanent Court of Arbitration for the purpose of facili- 

Establish- tating arbitration in the case of international disputes which 

ment of a j^ jg found impossible to settle by the ordinary means 

Permanent ,. r^^ ^ ^ • r 

Court of of diplomacy. The Court does not consist of a group 

Arbitration gf judges holding sessions at stated times to try such cases 
as may be brought before it. But it is provided that each power 
"shall select not more than four persons of recognized competence in 
questions of international law, enjoying the highest moral reputation 
and disposed to accept the duties of arbitrators," and that their 
appointment shall run for six years and may be renewed. Out of 
this long list the powers at variance may choose, in a manner indi- 
cated, the judges who shall decide any given case. 

Recourse to tliis Court is optional, but the Court is always ready to 
be invoked. Arbitration is entirely voluntary with the parties to a 
quarrel, but if they wish to arbitrate, the machinery is at hand, a fact 
which is, perhaps, an encouragement to its use. 

The work of the First Peace Conference was very limited and mod- 
est, yet encouraging. But that the new century was to bring not peace 
but a sword, that force still ruled tho world, was shortly apparent. Those 
who were optimistic about the rapid spread of arbitration as a principle 
destined to regulate the international relations of the future were sadly 



THE HAGUE CONFERENCE 593 

disappointed by the meager results of the Conference, and were still 
more depressed by subsequent events. For almost on the 

iiri'^r i'i- ^^^ twen- 

very heels of this Conference, which it was hoped would tieth century 

further the interests of peace, came the devastatins; war in op^ns with 

wars 
South Africa, followed quickly by the war between Russia 

and Japan. Also the expenditures of European states upon armies 

and navies continued to increase, and at an even faster rate than ever. 

During the eight years, from 1898 to 1906, they augmented nearly 

£70,000,000, the sum total mounting from £250,000,000 to £320,000,000. 

Such was the disappointing sequel of the Hague Conference. But 

despite discouragements the friends of peace were active, and finally 

brought about the Second Conference at the Hague in ^^ ^ 

® 111 ^^® Second 

1907. This also was called by Nicholas II, though Peace Con- 
President Roosevelt had first taken the initiative. The ffence at 

the Hague 
Second Conference was in session from June 15 to 

October 18. It was attended by representatives from forty-four 
of the world's fifty-seven states claiming sovereignty in 1907. The 
number of countries represented in this Conference, therefore, was 
nearly double that represented in the first, and the number of members 
was more than double, mounting from one hundred to two hundred and 
fifty-SLx. The chief additions came from the republics of Central and 
South America. The number of American governments represented 
rose, indeed, from two to nineteen. Twenty-one European, nineteen 
American, and four Asiatic states sent delegates to this Second Confer- 
ence. Its membership iUustrated excellently certain features of our 
day, among others the indubitable fact that we live in an age of world 
politics, that isolation no longer exists, either of nation or of hemi- 
spheres. The Conference was not European but international, — the 
majority of the states were non-European. 

The Second Conference accomplished much useful w^ork in the adop- 
tion of conventions regulating the actual conduct of war in more hu- 
mane fashion, and in defining certain aspects of interna- work of the 
tional law with greater precision than heretofore. But, Conference 
concerning compulsory arbitration, and concerning disarmament or the 
limitation of armaments, nothing was achieved. It passed this resolu- 
tion: "The Conference confirms the resolution adopted by the Con- 
ference of 1899 in regard to the restriction of military expenditures; 
and, since military expenditures have increased considerably in nearly 



594 THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 ' 

every country since the said year, the Conference declares that it is 
highly desirable to see the governments take up the serious scudy of the 
question." 

This platonic resolution was adopted unanimously. A grim commen- 
.tary on its importance in the eyes of the governments was contained in 
the history of the succeeding years with their ever-increasing military 
and naval appropriations, their tenser rivalry, their deepening deter- 
mination to be ready for whatever the future might have in store. 

That future had in store for 191 2 and 1913 two desperate wars in 
the Balkan peninsula and for 19 14 an appalling cataclysm. 

THE COLLAPSE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

We have seen with what enthusiasm the bloodless revolution of 
July 24, 1908, was hailed by all the races of Turkey. It seemed the bril- 
The Turkish li^nt dawn of a new era. It has however proved to be the 
Revolution beginning of the end of the Turkish Empire in Europe, if 
° not in Asia as well. From that day to the outbreak of the 

European war six years later the Balkan peninsula was the storm center 
of the world. Event succeeded event, swift, startling, and sensational, 
throwing a lengthening and deepening shadow before. No adequate 
description of these crowded years can be attempted here. Only an 
outline can be given indicating the successive stages of a portentous and 
absorbing drama. 

The ease with which the Young Turks overthrew in those July days 

of 1908 the loathsome regime of Abdul Hamid, and the principles of 

freedom and fair play which they proclaimed, aroused the 
Apparent , . . . : 1 ,• i 1 i- t i 

unanimity of happiest anticipations, and enlisted the liveliest sympathy 

the move- among multitudes within and without the Empire. The 
very atmosphere was charged with the hope and the expec- 
tation that the reign of liberty, equality, and fraternity was about to 
begin for this sorely visited land where unreason in all its varied forms 
had hitherto held sway. Would not Turkey, rejuvenated, modernized, 
and liberalized, strong in the loyalty and well-being of its citizens, freed 
from the blighting inheritance of its gloomy past, take an honorable 
place at last in the family of humane and progressive nations? Might 
not the old racial and religious feuds disappear imder a new regime, 
where each locality would have a certain autonomy, large enough to in- 
sure essential freedom in religion and in language? Might not a strong 



THE TURKISH REVOLUTION 595 

national patriotism be developed out of the polyglot conditions by free- 
dom, a thing which despotism had never been able to evoke? Might 
not Turkey become a stronger nation by adopting the principles of true 
toleration toward all her various races and religions? Had not the 
time come for the elimination of these primitive but hardy prejudices - 
and animosities? IMight not races and creeds be subordinated to a 
large and essential unity? Alight not this be the final, though unex- 
pected, solution of the famous Eastern Question? 

Even in those golden days some doubted, not seeing any authentic 
signs of an impending millenium for that distracted corner of the world. 
At least the problem of so vast a transformation would be very difficult. 
The unanimity shown in the joyous destruction of the old system might 
not be shown in the construction of the new, as many precedents in 
European history suggested. If Turkey were left alone to concentrate 
her entire energy upon the impending work of reform, she Attitude of 
might perhaps succeed. But she was not to be left alone foreign 
now any more than she had been for centuries. The p^^®'"^ 
Eastern Question has long perplexed the powers of Europe, and has 
at the same time lured them on to seek their own advantage in its 
labyrinthine mazes. It is conspicuously an international problem. 
But the internal reform of Turkey might profoundly alter her inter- 
national position by increasing the power of the Empire. 

Thus it came about that the July Revolution of 1908 instantly 
riveted the attention of European powers and precipitated a series of 
startling events. Might not a reformed Turkey, animated with a new 
national spirit, with her army and finances reorganized and placed 
upon a solid basis, attempt to recover complete control of some of 
the possessions which, as we have seen, had been really, though not 
nominally and technically, torn from her — Bosnia, Herzegovina, 
Bulgaria, Crete, possibly Cyprus, possibly Egypt? There was very 
little evidence to show that the Young Turks had any such intention 
or dreamed of entering upon so hazardous an adventure. Indeed, it 
was quite apparent that they asked nothing better than to be left 
alone, fully recognizing the intricacy of their immediate problem, the 
need of quiet for its solution. But the extremity of one is the oppor- 
tunity of another. 

On October 3, 1908 Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary 
announced, through autograph letters to various rulers, his decision to 



596 



THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 



incorporate Bosnia and Herzegovina definitively within 'his empire. 
Austria- These were Turkish provinces, handed over by the Congress 

Hungary ^f Berlin in 1878 to Austria-Hungary for "occupation" 

3.T1T16X6S 

Bosnia and and administration, though they still remained officially 
Herzegovina under the suzerainty of the Porte. On October 5 Prince 
Ferdinand of Bulgaria proclaimed, 
amid great ceremony, the complete 
Bulgaria independence of Bul- 

deciares her garia from Turkish 
independence s^^grainty, and as- 
sumed the title of Czar. Two 
days later the Greek population of 
the island of Crete repudiated all 
connection with Turkey and de- 
clared for union with Greece. On 
the same day, October 7, Francis 
Joseph issued a proclamation to 
the people of Bosnia and Herze- 
govina announcing the annexation 
of those provinces. Against this 
action Servia protested vigorously 
to the powers, her parliament was 
immediately convoked, and the 
war spirit flamed up and threat- 
ened to get beyond control. Fer- 
dinand was prepared to defend 
the independence of Bulgaria by going to war with Turkey, if necessary. 
These startling events immediately aroused intense excitement 
throughout Europe. They constituted violent breaches of the Treaty of 
Berlin. The crisis precipitated by the actions of Austria-Hungary and 
Bulgaria brought all the great powers, signatories of that treaty, upon 
the scene. It became quickly apparent that they did not agree. Ger- 
many made it clear that she would support Austria, and 
Italy seemed likely to do the same. The Triple Alliance, 
therefore, remained firm. . In another group were Great 
Britain, France, and Russia, their precise position not clear, 
but plainly irritated at the defiance of the Treaty of Berlin. 
A tremendous interchange of diplomatic notes ensued. The British 




Francis Joseph 
From a photograph taken in igis. 



The powers 
do not pre- 
vent these 
breaches of 
the Treaty 
of Berlin 



OPENING OF THE TURKISH PARLIAMENT 597 

Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, announced that Great Britain could 
not admit "the right of any power to alter an international treaty 
without the consent of the other parties to it," and demanded that, 
as the public law of the Balkans rested upon the Treaty of Berlin of 
1878, and that as that treaty was made by all the great powers, it 
could only be revised by the great powers, meeting again in Congress. 
But neither Austria nor Germany would listen to this suggestion. They 
knew that Russia could not intervene, lamed, as she was, by the dis- 
astrous war with Japan, with her army disorganized and her finances in 
bad condition. And they had no fear of Great Britain and France. 
Thus the Treaty of Berlin was flouted, although later the signatories 
of that treaty formally recognized the accomplished fact. 

Of all the states the most aggrieved by these occurrences was Servia, 
and the most helpless. For years the Servians had entertained the 

ambition of uniting Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Mon- 

. Servia 

tenegro, peopled by members of the same Servian race, 

thus restoring the Servian empire of the Middle Ages, and gaining ac- 
cess to the sea. This plan was blocked, apparently forever. Servia 
could not expand to the west, as Austria barred the way with Bosnia 
and Herzegovina. She could not reach the sea. Thus she could get her 
products to market only with the consent of other nations. She alone 
of all the states in Europe, with the exception of Switzerland, was in 
this predicament. Feeling that she must thus become a vassal state, 
probably to her enemy, Austria-Hungary, seeing all possibility of ex- 
pansion ended, all hopes of combining the Serbs of the Balkans under 
her banner frustrated, the feeling was strong that war, even against 
desperate odds, was preferable to strangulation. However she did not 
fly to arms. But the feeling of anger and alarm remained, an element 
in the general situation that could not be ignored, auguring ill for 
the future. 

But trouble for the Young Turks came not only from the outside. It 
also came from inside and, as was shortly seen, it lay in large measure in 
their own unwisdom. Difiiculties manifold encompassed them about. 

The new Turkish Parliament met in December, 1908 amid general 
enthusiasm. It consisted of two chambers, a Senate, ap- opening of 
pomted by the Sultan, and a Chamber of Deputies, elected the Turkish 
by the people. Four months later events occurred which ^^ '^™ ^ 
threatened the abrupt termination of this experiment in constitutional 



598 THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

and parliamentary government. On April 13, 1909, without warning, 
thousands of troops in Constantinople broke into mutiny, killed some 
The counter- °^ ^^^^^ ofl&cers, denounced the Young Turks, and de- 
revolution manded the abohtion of the constitution. The city was 
of April, 1909 j-gj-j-Qj-ized. At the same time sickening massacres occurred 
in Asia Minor, particularly at Adana, showing that the religious and 
racial animosities of former times had lost none of their force. It seemed 
The Young ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ regime was about to founder utterly. A 
Turks re- counter-revolution was to undo the work of July. But 
gain control ^j^j^ counter-revolution was energetically suppressed by 
troops sent up from Salonica and Adrianople and the Young Turks were 
soon in power again. Holding that the mutmy had been inspired and 
organized by the Sultan, who had corrupted the troops so that he might 
restore the old regime, they resolved to terminate his rule. On April 
Deposition of ^7' ^9°9' Abdul Hamid II was deposed, and was immedi- 
Abdui ately taken as a prisoner of state to Salonica. He was 

Hanud II succeeded by his brother, whom he had kept imprisoned 

many years. The new Sultan, Mohammed V, was in his sixty-fourth 
year. He at once expressed his entire sympathy with the armies of the 
Young Turks, his intention to be a constitutional monarch. The Young 
Turks were in power once more. 

From the very beginning they failed. They did not rise to the height 
of their opportunity, they did not meet the expectations that had been 
The Young aroused, they did not loyally live up to the principles they 
Turks be- professed. They made no attempt to introduce the spirit 
tionary and of justice, of fair play toward the various elements of their 
despotic highly composite empire. Instead of seeking to apply the 

principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, they resorted to autocratic 
government, to domination by a single race, to the ruthless suppression 
of the rights of the people. They did just what the Germans have done 
in Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, what the Russians have done in Finland 
and in Poland, what the Austrians and Hungarians have done with the 
Slavic peoples within their borders. The policy of oppression of subject 
Oppression races, the attempt at amalgamation by force and craft, 
of subject have strewn Europe with combustible material and the 
''^*^®^ combustion has finally come. The government of the Young 

Turks was just as despotic as that of Abdul Hamid and its outcome was 
the same, a further and decisive disruption of the Empire. 



POLICY OF TURKIFICATION 599 

From the very first they showed their purpose. They, the Turks, 
that is the Mohammedan ruHng race, determined to keep power abso- 
lutely in their own hands by hook or crook. In the very first elections 
to Parliament they arranged affairs so that they would have a majority 
over all other races combined. They did not intend to divide power 
with the Christian Greeks and Armenians or the Mohammedan Arabs. 
Their policy was one of Turkification, just as the Russian a policy of 
policy was one of Russification, the German of Germani- Turkification 
zation. They made no attempt to punish the perpetrators of the Adana 
massacres in which over thirty thousand Armenian Christians were 
slaughtered. The Armenian population was thus alienated from them. 
They tried to suppress the liberties which under all previous regimes the 
Orthodox Greek Church had enjoyed. As they intended to subject all 
the races of the Empire to their own race, so they intended to suppress 
by force all religious privileges. They thus offended and infuriated the 
Greeks, whom they also alarmed and embittered by a commercial boy- 
cott because the Greeks would not agree to their repressive policy in 
regard to the Cretans. Their treatment of Macedonia was the acme 
of folly. They sought to reinforce the Moslem elements of q^^^^ ^^_ 
the population by bringing in Moslems from other regions, rule of 
This aroused the Christian elements, Greek, Bulgarian, ^^^ °^°' 
and Servian. Large numbers of these Christians fled from Mace- 
donia to Greece, Bulgaria, and Servia, carrying with them theirgriev- 
ances, urging the governments of those countries to hostility against 
the Turks. 

The Turks went a step farther. In the west were the Albanians, a 
Moslem people who had hitherto combined local independence with 
loyal and appreciated services to the Turkish authorities, ^^^^ ^^^^^_ 
in both the army and the government. The Turks decided ment of 
to suppress this independence and to make the Albanians 
submit in all matters to the authorities at Constantinople. But the 
Albanians had been for centuries remarkable fighters. They now flew 
to arms. Year after year the Albanian rebellion broke out, only tempo- 
rarily subdued or smothered by the Turks, who thus exhausted their 
strength and squandered their resources in fruitless but costly efforts 
to "pacify" these hardy war-loving mountaineers. 

Thus only a few years of Young Turk rule were necessary to create 
a highly critical situation, so numerous were the disaffected elements. 



6oo THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

There had been no serious attempt to regenerate Turkey, to bring 
Widespread together the various races on the basis of liberty for all. 
disaffectioa Turkey lost hundreds of thousands of its Christian sub- 
jects who fled to surrounding countries rather than endure the odious 
oppression. These exiles did what they could to hit back at their 
oppressors. 

The Young Turks from the very beginning failed as reformers be- 
cause they were untrue to their promises. Their failure led 
The Young .i-r.ii • i -n n 

Turks false to war m the Balkans and the war m the Balkans led to. 

to their ^g European War. They spent their time in endeavoring 

promises , 

to assert themselves as a race of masters. Ihey sowed 

the wind and they quickly reaped the whirlwind. 

THE TURKO-IT.\LIAX WAR OF 1911 

While the Turkish Empire was in this highly perturbed condition 
and while the Balkan states were aglow with indignation at the treat- 
ment being meted out to the members of their races resident in Mace- 
donia and were trembling with the desire to act, trouble flared up for the 
Italian coio- ^ oung Turks in another quarter. Italy had for years been 
nial aspira- casting longing eyes on the territories which fringe the 
southern shores of the Mediterranean. She had once hoped 
to acquire Tmiis but had imexpectedly foimd herself forestaUed by 
France, which seized that countr\' in i88i. At the same time England 
began her occupation of Eg}-pt. All that remained therefore was Trip- 
oli, like Eg^-pt a part of the Turkish Empire. For many years the 
thought that this territory- ought to belong to Italy had been accepted 
as axiomatic in influential quarters' in the Italian government and dip- 
lomatic circles. Schemes had been worked out and partly put into force 
for a "pacific penetration" of an economic character of this land. Now, 
however the time seemed to have arrived to seize it outright. Austria- 
Himgary had annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria had de- 
clared her independence in 1908, and there had been no successful 
opposition on the part of Turkey or of any of the Great Powers. Was 
not this the ripe moment for Italy's project? 

She e\T[dently thought so, for, in September, 191 1, she sent her war- 
Italy invades ships to TripoU and began the conquest of that coimtry. 
TnpoU (1911) j^ proved a more difiicult undertaking than had been 
imagined. WTiile she seized the coast towns, her hold on them was pre- 



ITALY AND TRIPOLI 6oi 

carious and her progress into the interior was slow and costly, owing 
to the fact that the Turks aroused and directed the natives against 
the invaders. Italy had given her ally Austria-Hungary to understand 
that she would not attack Turkey directly in Europe, as European 
Turkey was a veritable tinder-box which, if it once caught fire, might 
blaze up into a devastating and incalculable conflagration. But as 
month after month went by and Italy was producing only 
an uncertain effect in Tripoli, she resolved on more decisive ish islands 
action nearer Constantinople, hoping to bring the Turks ^ ^^^ 
to terms. She attacked and seized Rhodes and eleven 
other Turkish islands in the .'Egean, the Dodecanese. This, and the fact 
that an Albanian revolution against the Turks was at the same time at- 
taining alarming proportions, made the latter ready to conclude peace 
with Italy so that they might be free to put do'^Ti the Albanians. On 
October 15, 191 2, was signed at Ouchy, or Lausanne, a Treaty of 
treaty whereby Turkey relinquished Tripoli. It was also l-ausanne 
provided that Italy should withdraw her troops from the Dodecanese 
as soon as the Turkish troops were withdrawn from Tripoli, a phrase 
about which it was easy to quibble later. 

The great significance of this war did not lie in the fact that Italy 
acquired a new colony. It lay in the fact that it began again the process, 
arrested since 1878, of the violent dismemberment of the Momentous 
Turkish Empire; that it revealed the militar\- weakness of ^^l^^^_°^ 
that empire, powerless to preser\'e its integrity; and, what Turkish 
is most important, that it contributed directly and greatly ^^ 
to a far more serious attack upon Turkey by the Balkan states, which, 
in turn, led to the European War. The tinder-box was lighted and a 
general European conflagration resulted. The Italian attack upon Trip- 
oli was momentous in its consequences. 

THE B.\LKAN WARS 
Din-ing the war the Balkan states were negotiatmg with each other 
with a view to imited action against Turkey. This union was not easy 
to bring ^bout as Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece disliked ^^^ ^^^^ 
each other intensely, for historical, racial, sentimental rea- states unite 
sons, too numerous and too complex to be described here. ^^^^^ *^® 
However, they disliked the Turks more and they were 
suffering constantly from the Turks. Terrible persecutions, even mas- 



6o2 THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

sacres, of the Christians in Macedonia in which large numbers of Greeks, 
Bulgarians, and Servians lost their lives, inflamed the people of those 
states with the desire to liberate their brothers in Macedonia. By doing 
this they would also increase their own territories and diminish or end 
an odious tyranny. These nations found it possible to unite for the pur- 
pose of overwhelming the Turks; they might not find it possible to agree 
as to the partition among themselves of any territories they might ac- 
quire, since here their old, established ambitions and antipathies might 
conflict. It was because of the strength of these rivalries and hatreds 
that neither the Turks nor the outside powers considered an alliance of 
the Balkan states as at all among the possibilities. But the statesmen of 
the Balkans had learned something from the troubled history of the 
peninsula, and saw the folly of continuing their dissensions. They also 
realized that now was their chance, that they might never again find 
their common enemy so weak and demoralized, the general European 
situation so favorable. 

Thus it came about that in October, 191 2 the four Balkan states, 
Montenegro, Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece made war on Turkey. The 
The Balkan war was brief and an overwhelming success for the allies. 
War of 1912 Fighting began on October 15, the very day of the signing 
of the Treaty of Lausanne between Italy and Turkey, although techni- 
cally the declarations of war were not issued until October 18. The 
Greeks pushed northward into Macedonia, gained several victories over 
The Greeks ^^^ enemy, and on November 8, only three weeks after the 
enter beginning of the campaign, they entered the important 

city and port of Salonica, with Crown Prince Constantine, 
the present king, who had revealed conspicuous military ability, at their 
head. Farther west the Servians and Montenegrins were also success- 
The Servians ful. The Servians won a great victory at Kumanovo where 
victorious they avenged the defeat of their ancestors at Kossova 

which they had not forgotten for five hundred years. They then cap- 
tured Monastir. 

Meanwhile the Bulgarians, who had the larger armies, had gone 

from victory to victory, defeating the Turks brilliantly in 

campaign of the battles of Kirk Kilisse and Lule Burgas. The latter 

i?®, . was one of the great battles of modern times, three hun- 

Bulganans 1 1 i ,- 

dred and fifty thousand troops being involved in fierce, 

tenacious struggle for three days. The result was the destruction of 



THE TREATY OF LONDON 603 

the military power of the Turks. By the middle of November the 
Bulgarians had reached the Chataldja line of fortifications which ex- 
tend from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea. Only twenty-five 
miles beyond them lay Constantinople. 

The collapse of the Turkish power in Europe was nearly complete. 
Only the very important fortresses of Adrianople in the east, and Jan- 
ina and Scutari in the west, had not fallen. In a six weeks' collapse of 
campaign Turkish possessions in Europe had shrimk to the Turkish 
Constantinople and the twenty-five mile stretch west to ^^^^'^ 
the Chataldja fortifications. This overthrow and collapse came as a 
staggering surprise to the Turks, the Balkan Allies themselves, and the 
Great Powers. The Ottoman Empire in Europe had ceased to exist, 
w^ith the exception of Constantinople, Adrianople, Janina, and Scutari. 
The military prestige of Turkey was gone. 

In December delegates from the various states met in London to 
make peace. They were unsuccessful because Bulgaria demanded the 
surrender of Adrianople, which the Turks flatly refused, j^^ London 
In March, 1013, therefore, the war was resumed. One after Peace Con- 
another the fortresses fell, Janma on March 6, Adrianople 
on March 26, Scutari on April 23. Turkey was now compelled to accept 
terms of peace. On May 30, the Treaty of London was signed. It pro- 
vided that a line should be drawn from Enos on the ^gean Sea to 
Midia on the Black Sea and that all Turkey west of that line should 
be ceded to the Allies, except a region of undefined dimensions on the 
Adriatic, Albania, whose boundaries and status should be determined 
by the Great Powers. Crete was ceded to the Great Powers and the 
decision as to the islands in the ^gean which Greece had ^^^ ^^^^^^ 
seized was also left to them. In December, 1913, Crete of London 
was incorporated in the kingdom of Greece. The Sultan's j^^^y ^o, 
dominions in Europe had shrimk nearly to the vanishing 
point. After five centuries of proud possession he found himself almost 
expelled from Europe, retaining still Constantinople and only enough 
territory round about to protect it. This great achievement was the 
work of the four Balkan states, united for once in the common work of 
liberation. The Great Powers had done nothing. Europe felt relieved, 
however, that so great a change as this in the map of the Balkan 
peninsula had been effected without involving the Great Powers in war. 

The Treaty of London, however, had not long to live. No sooner 



6o4 THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

had the Balkan states conquered Turkey than they fell to fighting among 
A short- themselves over the division of the spoils. The responsi- 

lived peace bility for this calamity does not rest solely with them. 
It rests in part with the Great Powers, particularly with Austria and 
Italy. It was the intervention of these powers and their insistence up- 
on the creation of a new independent state, Albania, out of a part of 
the territory now relinquished by the Turks, that precipitated a crisis 
whose very probable issue would be war. For the creation of this 
artificial state on the Adriatic coast absolutely prevented Servia 
Servia still from realizing one of her most passionate and legitimate 
land-locked ambitions, an outlet to the sea, an escape from her 
land-locked condition which placed her at the mercy of her neighbors. 

Before beginning the war with the Turks, Servia and Bulgaria had 
defined their future spheres of influence in upper Macedonia, should the 
war result in their favor. The larger part of Macedonia should go to 
Bulgaria, and Servia's gains should be chiefly in the west, including the 
longed-for Adriatic sea coast. But now Albania was planted there and 

A * •„- ^„ Servia was as land-locked as ever. Austria was resolved 
Austrian op- 
position to that Servia should under no conditions become an Adriatic 

^®"'^ state. She has always been opposed to the aggrandizement 

of Servia, because she has millions of Serbs under her own rule who might 
be attracted to an independent Servia, enlarged and with prestige 
heightened. Moreover she believed that Servia would be the pawn of 
Russia, and she would not tolerate Russia's influence on her southern 
borders and along the Adriatic, if she could help it. She did not propose 
to be less important in those waters than she had been in the past. 
Therefore Servia must be excluded from the Adriatic. It was the block- 
ing of Servia's outlet to the sea that caused the second Balkan war be- 
tween the allies. Intense was the indignation of the Servians, but they 
could do nothing. They therefore sought as partial compensation 
larger territories in Macedonia than their treaty with Bulgaria had as- 
signed them, arguing, correctly enough, that the conditions had greatly 
Claims of changed from those contemplated when that agreement was 
Servia and made and that the new conditions justified and necessitated 
^^"^ a new arrangement. But here they encountered the stub- 

born opposition of Bulgaria which refused any concessions along this 
line and insisted upon the strict observance of the treaty. Instantly the 
old, bitter hatred of these two countries for each other flamed up again. 



TREATY OF BUCHAREST 605 

The Servians insisted that the expulsion of the Turks had been the work 

of all the allies and that there should be a fair division of the territories 

acquired in the name of all. On the other hand the Bulgarians argued 

that it had been they who had done the heavy fighting in the war, which 

was true, that they had furnished by far the larger number of troops, 

that it was their victories at Kirk Kilisse and Lule Burgas that had 

annihilated the power of the Turks in Europe, that they were entitled to 

annex territories in Macedonia which they declared were peopled by 

Bulgarians. Other considerations also entered into the situation. 

Suffice it to say that Bulgaria intended to have her way. Her army 

was elated by the recent astounding successes, was rather contemptuous 

of the Servians and Greeks, emphatically minimized the Bulgaria un- 

services rendered by these to the common cause, thought compromis- 

that it could easily conquer both if necessary, and could ^°^ 

take what territories it chose. It was Bulgaria, whose war party had 

lost all sense of proportion, all sense of the rights of her Bulgaria 

former allies, that began the new struggle. She treacher- attacks 

' '^ . 1 1 Greece and 

ously attacked Greece and Servia at the end of June, 1913. Servia 

Fierce fighting ensued for several days, marked by savage (J"^^- 1913) 

atrocities on both sides. 

Bulgaria's action in plunging into this avoidable conflict was all the 
more foolhardy as her relations with her northern neighbor, Roumania, 
were also imsettled and precarious. Roumania had demanded that 
Bulgaria cede her a strip of territory in the northeast of Roumania 
Bulgaria, in order that the balance of power among the enters the 
Balkan states might remain practically what it had been. Bulgaria^r^ 
Bulgaria had refused this so-called compensation. The the Turks 
result was that Roumania also went to war with Bulgaria. 
The Turks, too, seeing a chance to recover some of the land they 
had recently lost, joined the war. 

Thus Bulgaria was confronted on all sides by enemies. She was at 
war with five states, not three, for Montenegro was also involved. 
By the middle of July she saw that the case was hope- Bulgaria 
less and consented to make peace, by the Treaty of <iefeated 
Bucharest, signed August 10, 1913, by which Servia and Greece se- 
cured larger possessions than they had ever anticipated. Treaty of 
and by which Roumania was given the territory she desired. Bucharest 
Turkey also recovered a large area which she had lost the year before, 



6o6 THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 

including the important city and fortress of Adrianople, All this was at 
the expense of Bulgaria, who paid for her arrogance and unconciliatory 
temper by losing much territory which she would otherwise have secured, 
by seeing her former and hated allies victorious over her in the field 
and in annexations of territory which she regarded as rightfully hers. 
Bulgaria was deeply embittered by all this and has since only been 
waiting to tear up the Treaty of Bucharest which she has refused to 
consider as morally binding, as in any sense a permanent settlement 
of the Balkans. The year 1913 will remain of bitter memory in the 
minds of all Bulgarians. 

The two Balkan wars cost heavily in human life and in treasure. 
Turkey and Bulgaria each lost over 150,000 in killed and wounded. 
Cost of the Servia over 70,000, Greece nearly as many, little Monte- 
Balkan wars negro over 10,000. The losses among non-combatants 
were heavy in those who died from starvation, or disease, or massacre, 
for the second war was one of indisputable atrocity. On the other 
Changes in hand Montenegro, Greece, and Servia had nearly doubled 
the map j^ size. Bulgaria and Roumania had grown. The Turkish 

Empire in Europe was limited to a comparatively small area. 

We must now examine the reaction of all these profound and aston- 
ishing changes in the Balkans upon Europe in general. In other words 
we must study the causes of the war of 1914. For the Bal- 
the Balkan kan wars of 191 2 and 1913 were a prelude to the European 
wars upon ^g^j. Qf 1Q14. The sequence of events from the Turkish 
Revolution of July, 1908 to the Austrian declaration of war 
upon Servia in July, 1914, is direct, unmistakable, disastrous. Each 
year added a link to the lengthening chain of iron. The map of Europe 
was thrown into the flames. What the new map will be is the secret of 
the future. 

It may be said in passing that the new Albanian state proved a fiasco 
from the start and that it disappeared completely when the war began 
The Alba- in August, 1914, the powers that had created it withdrawing 
nia^ fiasco their support and its German prince, William of Wied, 
leaving for Germany where he joined the army that was fighting 
France. He had meanwhile announced his abdication in a high-flown 
manifesto. 



THE BALKAxM WARS OF 1912 AND 1913 607 

REFERENCES 

The Regime of the Young Turks: Gibbons, The New Map of Europe, Chap. 
XI, pp. 180-219; Pears, Forty Years in Constantinople. 

The War between Italy and Turkey: Gibbons, Chap. XIII, pp. 241-262. 

The War between the Balkan States and Turkey: Gibbons, Chap. XIV, 
pp. 263-318; Schurman, The Balkan Wars, pp. 3-60; Seymour, The Diplomatic Back- 
ground of the War, Chap. X. 

The War between the Balkan States: Gibbons, Chap. XV, pp. 319-350; 
Schurman, pp. 63-131; Seymour, Chap. X. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 
THE EUROPEAN WAR 

In August, 1913 the long-drawn-out crisis in the Balkans seemed safely 
over with the Treaty of Bucharest, to the apparent satisfaction of the 
Dissatisfac- people of Europe. It had not resulted in what had been 
Austria-Hun- greatly feared, a European war. That had been avoided 
gary and Ger- and the World breathed more freely. But that this feeling 
th^^Balkan ^^^ ^°^ shared by the governments of Austria and Ger- 
settlement many has since been revealed. Though this was not pub- 
licly known until more than a year afterward, it is now established that 
on August 9, 191 3, the day before the Treaty of Bucharest was for- 
Austria re- mally signed, Austria informed her ally, Italy, that she pro- 
solves to at- posed to take action against Servia. She represented this 
tack Servia proposed action as defensive and as therefore justifying 
her in expecting the aid of Italy imder the terms of the treaty of the 
Triple Alliance. Italy through her prime minister, Giolitti, refused to 
Italy declines ^-ccede to this view, stating that such a war would not 
to cooper- be one of defense on the part of Austria as no one was 
**® thinking of attacking her. The treaty of Triple Alliance 

required its members to aid each other only in the case of a defensive 
war forced upon a colleague. Austria, then, planned war upon Servia 
in August, 1913. Whether she was restrained by the knowledge that 
Italy would not support her or by other considerations is a matter for 
conjecture. 

Prince von Biilow, who for nine years had been Chancellor of Ger- 
many, has declared that the collapse of Turkey was a blow to Germany. 
Germany ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ground that in 191 3 new army and taxa- 

increases her tion bills, extraordinarily increasing Germany's prepared- 
^^™^ ness for war, were carried through. This inevitably led to 

similar, though not to as sweeping, legislation in France. 

Austria and Germany, therefore, were far from pleased at the out- 
come of events in the Balkans, and the former, a great European state 

608 



7iWyckoff 




ASSASSINATION OF THE ARCHDUKE 609 

of fifty millions, was planning action by arms against Servia, a nation 
of now perhaps four millions, a nation both exhausted and 
elated by two years of war. Of course Austria knew that tioTo^Aul- 
any such action would bring Russia upon the scene, and that *"^ ^"^ 
was the reason for her desiring the eventual support of her ^^^^^^ 
two aUies. While for reasons that are somewhat obscure Austria finally 
did not consider the moment opportune for making war on Servia in 
August, 1913, she did consider it opportune in July, 1914, and from her 
action at that time came swiftly and dramatically the present conflict. 
The relations of Austria-Hungary and Servia have already been 
alluded to, the former's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, 

and her part in the creation of the artificial state of Albania 
r ,1 , , r^ • , • Relations of 

tor the same purpose, to prevent Servia s gettmg any out- Austria- 
let to the sea. Yet, though successful in this, she had not Hungary and 
been able to prevent the growth of Servia. Servia had, 
however, submitted in 1908 and 1909 and in 1913, to demands which 
emanated from Austria-Hungary and which were deeply humiliating. 
On both sides there was, as there had long been, plenty of bad blood. 

Suddenly a horrible crime occurred which set in motion a mighty and 
lamentable train of events. On June 28, 19 14, the Archduke Francis 

Ferdinand, nephew of the Emperor of Austria, and heir to 

.11 . , , . .^ . 1 . 1 Assassination 

the throne, was, with his wiie, assassinated m the streets of the Arch- 

of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The men who had done *^"^®. Francis 
the infamous deed were Austrian subjects, natives of Bos- 
nia. But they were Servians by race. An outburst of intense indig- 
nation followed against the Servians, "a, nation of assassins," it was 
declared. Servia was, by Austrian opinion, held responsible, although 
the crime occurred on Austrian soil and was committed by Austrian 
subjects, and although Austrian methods of rule in Bosnia were of such 
a character as sufficiently to account for the dastardly crime. At any 
rate the desire for war was expressed in many Austrian newspapers, 
which held the Servian government responsible. 

But four weeks went by and the Austrian government took no ac- 
tion. No information could be obtained by the diplomats Attitude of 
in Vienna as to what she proposed to do. They saw no the Austrian 
reason for any particular worry, as the government was sovernmen 
evidently so self-contained, and they therefore took their usual vaca- 
tions. It was intimated that Austria would make some demands upon 



6io THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Servia but that they would be of a moderate character. There was 
widespread sympathy with her and a general feeling that she would be 
justified in demanding certain things of Servia. The representatives 
of the various European governments were kept in ignorance. A des- 
patch, which was destined to shake the very foundations of the world, 
was being fashioned, in utter silence and mystery. 

On July 23, Austria delivered this despatch to Servia. It began 
by accusing the Servian government of not having fulfilled the obli- 
The Austrian g^^tions it had assumed in 1909 toward Austria. It de- 
despatch of manded that the Servian government should publish an 
official statement, the terms of which were dictated in 
the despatch, expressing its disapproval of the propaganda in Ser- 
via against Austria-Hungary and its regret that Servian officials had 
taken part in this propaganda. In the despatch the murder of the Arch- 
duke was ascribed to that propaganda. Then followed ten demands upon 
the Servian government concerning the suppression of the Pan-Servian 
Demands propaganda carried on by the newspapers and the secret 

made upon societies of Servia. The despatch demanded that the Ser- 
^^^^^ vian government should suppress any publication which 

fostered hatred of and contempt for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, 
should take the most comprehensive measures for the suppression and 
extinction of the secret societies, should eliminate from the schools all 
teachers and from text-books anything that served or might serve to 
foster the propaganda against Austria-Hungary, should remove from the 
army and from government positions all officials involved in the sanie 
propaganda, whose names the Austrian government reserved the right 
to communicate, and that Servia should accept the cooperation of Aus- 
trian officials in the work of investigating the conspiracy of June 28. 
Other clauses in this fateful despatch concerned the arrest of the ac- 
complices in the assassination and the prevention of the trade in arms 
and explosives across the frontier. Annexed to the despatch was a 
memorandum asserting that the murder of the Archduke and the Arch- 
duchess had been plotted in Servia and had been executed through the 
complicity of Servian officials. 

This despatch, harsh in its language, dictatorial in its demands, was 
This despatch an ultimatum, for it required the acceptance of it in its en- 
an ultimatum tirety within forty-eight hours, and it allowed no time for 
investigation or discussion of the charges made and the problems ere- 



AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM TO SERVIA '611 

ated by the peremptory demand. No nation would issue such a note to 
an equal without intending and without desiring war. Issued to a 
power vastly inferior • it could mean only unprecedented humiliation or 
national extinction, if followed up at the expiration of forty-eight hours. 
This Austrian ultimatum created a grave crisis. The ultimatum 
was not a passionate and unreflecting outburst of the Austrian govern- 
ment, swept away by natural anger at the foul murders. 
It was a cold-blooded and deliberate document, composed creates a 

after four weeks of secret preparation. The Russian am- dangerous 

crisis 
bassador had not been told that it was coming and had 

left Vienna for his vacation. The Italian government had not been 

informed, although it was an ally and was particularly concerned with 

anything that affected the Balkan peninsula in any way or Peculiar cir- 

part. In this fact Italy was to find her justification for cu™stances 

• 111 r 11 1 1 connected 

remammg neutral when the war finally broke out, as she re- with the 

garded that war as an aggressive one begun by Austria. <lespatch 

The ultimatum gave Servia the alternative of accepting egregiously 

humiliating conditions, practicaUy reducing her to the state of a vassal 

of Austria, or of accepting war. 

England, France, and Russia tried to induce Austria to extend her 

time limit as the only way in which diplomacy might seek to act 

in the matter, as, moreover, required if the relations of . ^ . 

-J • Austna 

nations were to be governed by a reasonable consideration urged to 

for each other's rights or wishes. Their efforts were in ®^*^°^. ^^® 
° . . . time limit 

vain. They then turned to Servia urgmg her, m the in- 
terests of Europe in general, to make her answer as conciliatory as pos- 
sible. The result was that Servia in her reply yielded to the greater 
part of what Austria demanded and that she offered, in servia's 
case Austria was not satisfied with her answer, to refer reply to the 
the question to the Hague Tribunal or to a conference of *™^ "°^ 
the Great Powers. 

No state ever made a more complete submission under particularly 
humiliating circumstances. Austria, however, immediately declared the 
Servian answer unsatisfactory and prepared for war. She ^^gt^a re- 
well knew that such action would necessarily draw Russia jects Ser- 
into the :ontroversy. She had every reason a state can 
have for knowing that, after the defiance of the annexation of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina in 1908, another attack upon a small Slavic people 



6i2 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

would deeply offend the leading Slavic power. Austria could not and 
Austrian did not expect to be able to wreak her vengeance upon 

ultimatum a Servia without having to take Russia into account. Hers, 
challenge to therefore, is the responsibility for a deliberate and highly 
Russia dangerous provocation of a great state. Russia, a Slavic 

power, could not be ignored by Teutonic powers in determining the future 
of Slavic peoples. If there was a single well-known fact in the whole 
domain of European politics it was that Russia was greatly interested 
in the fate of the Slav states of the Balkans. If there was any other well- 
established commonplace of European politics, it was this, that every 
Balkan question has always been considered as of general concern, as 
distinctly international. As a matter of fact, Servia's obligations of 
1909, already referred to, were undertaken to the Powers, not to 
Austria alone. 

Austria's position was that her action concerned herself and Servia 
alone; that no other nation or nations were involved or had any rights in 
Austria sup- ^^^ matter. In this she was supported from start to finish 
ported by by Germany. Both Austria and Germany were aware that 
ermany -warlike steps against Servia would bring Russia into the 

question and that, owing to the obligations of the Triple and Dual 
alliances, a general European war might result, yet both steadily refused 
to consider that Russia had any right to intervene; it was all a matter 
solely between the two, Austria and Servia. 

Naturally Russia did not take this view. Her warnings having proved 
unavailing, when Austria began to prepare for the attack upon Servia, 
Conduct of Russia began to mobilize. The policy of Germany through 
Russia ^-j^Q^i ^g^gj- -week of July was to support Austria in her conten- 

tion that this was her affair. She asserted that the quarrel was solely 
one between those two and that no outside power had the right to inter- 
vene, that, if the trouble could be kept confined to those two, there would 
be no general disturbance of the peace, that if the Czar however inter- 
fered there would be "on account of the various alliances, inconceivable 
consequences." If this was all that Germany did for peace, which she 
Germany asserts she made every effort to maintain, then, she did 

f<^,™^r^^ *^® simply nothing, for this policy of "localization of the con- 
tion of the flict" begged the whole question. It assumed that neither 
conflict " Russia nor any other power was in any way concerned. 

This was an absolutely imtenable position in the light of history, of 



RUSSIA MOBILIZES AGAINST AUSTRIA 613 

reason, of interest. The question was a part of the Eastern Question 
which over and over has been considered arid known to be emphatically 
international. No aspect of that question is to be left to the determina- 
tion of a state of fifty millions in conflict with one of four or five. 

A proposal was made by England that the question at issue should 
be submitted to a conference to be held in London by the Great Powers 
not directly concerned, namely Germany, France, England, 
and Italy. Perhaps these four might bring about the ad- proposes an 
justment of the difiiculties between Servia and Austria and international 

... . . conference 

Russia. Russia signified her willingness but the proposal 

was declined by Germany. Other suggestions of a somewhat similar 
nature looking toward delay and diplomatic discussion or mediation like- 
wise fell before the opposition or indifference of Germany, j^^ proposal 
Then when England asked Germany herself to suggest declined by 
some method of mediation for the preservation of peace, ^^^^^y 
she had nothing to suggest. She simply reafiirmed her position that the 
whole matter concerned merely Austria and Servia. She was willing 
to appeal and did appeal to Russia to keep out, to refrain Germany's 
from mobilizing, but her appeal was always based on this course 
thesis that the quarrel did not concern Russia but did concern simply 
Austria and Servia, a point of view which, naturally, Russia did not and 
could not share. Germany was ready to cooperate with other powers 
in bringing pressure to bear upon Russia but not upon her ally Austria, 
who had begim the whole trouble and to whom she gave a free hand in 
her procedure toward Servia. 

The attitudes of Germany and Russia were irreconcilable. Germany 
held that Russia should allow Austria entire liberty of action. Russia 
believed that Austria's uncompromising and violent procedure de- 
manded a Russian mobilization "directed solely against j^yggi^ mobi- 
Austria-Hungary " as the only method that might cause lizes against 
that country to moderate her procedure and induce her to ^^^^^^ 
recognize the rights of others. If Russia remained inac- 
tive, then Austria would do what she liked with Servia. Russia em- 
phatically claimed the right to be consulted in the settle- ^^^^^^^ 
ment of Balkan matters. Austria had mobilized and on sends an 
July 28 had begun a war upon Servia. Russia accordingly "^^^^^"^"^ *° 
mobihzed against Austria. Germany considered this ac- 
tion a menace to herself, and on July 31 sent an ultimatum to Rus- 



6i4 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

sia demanding that Russia begin to demobilize her army within twelve 
hours: otherwise Germany would mobihze. As Russia did not reply 
Germany de- ^^ ^^^^ peremptory demand Germany, on August i, de- 
clares war on clared that a state of war existed between Russia and 
ussia Germany. The German declaration of war against Russia 

necessarily meant war with France as well, because of the Dual 
Alliance. 

We have seen that this Dual Alliance was the inevitable outcome of 

the existence and power of the Triple Alliance, concluded between Ger- 

many, Austria, and Italy in 1882. The Dual Alliance grew 

and Triple out of the need which both Russia and France felt, of out- 

Alliances gj^jg support in the presence of so powerful a combination. 

involved t^ i ^ i • im i i r 

If there was to be anythmg like a balance 01 power m 
Europe, Russia and France must combine. Both alliances were defen- 
sive. The action of Austria against Servia brought Russia upon the 
scene. Russia's action brought Germany forward. Germany's action 
necessitated action on the part of France. 

One state was free to act as it saw fit, its conduct not controlled by 
any entangling alliance, England. The Triple and Dual Alliances rested 
, on definite treaties, neither of which has been made public, and imposed 
obligations upon the contracting parties. There had in recent years also 
The Triple grown up what was called the Triple Entente. The com- 
Entente mercial rivalry of Germany and England, during the past 

fifteen or twenty years, expressing itself in a struggle for markets, in 
colonial competitions, in a striking development of naval power, has been 
an outstanding fact in recent European history. Great Britain, seeing 
that her policy of isolation was possibly becoming dangerous with so 
active and successful a rival in the field, sought, in the first decade of 
the twentieth century, to settle long continued misunderstandings with 
France and Russia. This she did by a treaty with France in 1904 and 
with Russia in 1907. These agreements settled certain problems and 
provided certain measures in common, the former in Africa, the latter 
in Asia. During succeeding diplomatic crises the three powers worked 
The Triple ^ substantial harmony. But the Triple Entente was not 
Entente not an alliance: it was simply a diplomatic group that might 
an alliance ^^ found working together when the interests of its mem- 
bers happened to coincide. There was no actual alliance between 
Great Britain and France and there was no imderstanding of any kind 



THE INTERESTS OF GREAT BRITAIN 



615 



between Great Britain and Russia, with regard to any European policy 
or contingency. When the crisis of 1914 arose Great Britain was free 
to act as she chose, in the Ught of what she considered her interests. 
The diplomatic correspondence shows that this was understood in 

Berlin and Vienna as it was 
understood in Paris and St. 
Petersburg. 

But while Great Britain 
had no alliances that neces- 
sarily involved her in the 
present war, yet as a Euro- 
pean power, and as a great, 
imperial, colonial state, she 
had many and important in- 
terests for which she must 
care. It was for her interest 
that there should The interests 
be no European of Great 

1 v Britain 

war and it was 
also for the interest of Europe 
and the world. The negotia- 
tions of that week in July, 
from the issuance of the ulti- 
matum to Servia to the decla- 
rations of war, abundantly 
demonstrate that she made 
earnest, repeated, and varied efforts to bring about a peaceful solution 




Sir Edward Grey 



England 



of the problems that had been so suddenly thrust forward. 
She was wedded to no particular scheme or formula and strives to 
invited Germany to make suggestions that might effect the maintamj 
adjustment, if dissatisfied with hers. But despite her ef- 
forts a war had come involving four large states at least, Austria, Rus- 
sia, Germany, and France, and one small state, Servia. Would the 
conflagration spread? What would England do? 

It was certainly not for her interest that France should be conquered 
by Germany, as that would reduce France to the position of a satellite 
and would immensely augment the power and prestige of Germany. 
Moreover, England was bound in honor to prevent any attack upon 



6i6 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

the Atlantic sea coast of France, as, since 191 2, she had had a naval 
England's agreement with France whereby the French fleet was con- 
relation centrated in the Mediterranean in order that England 
wit ranee j^jgj-^^ keep larger naval forces in the home waters. It 
seems probable that England would have been drawn into the war 
necessarily if France was attacked, which was of course the purpose 
of Germany. But her participation was rendered inevitable .by Ger- 
many's attack upon Belgium. 

Three of the small states of Europe, Belgium, Luxemburg, and 
Switzerland, have been by international agreements declared neutral 
Belgium a territory forever. By these agreements the countries con- 
neutralized cerned should never make war, nor should they ever be 
^*^*® attacked. The powers that signed the treaties boimd them- 

selves to respect and preserve that neutrality. The treaty guaranteeing 
the neutralization of Belgium was signed by England, France, Prussia, 
Austria, and Russia. For over eighty years that obligation had been 
Germany's scrupulously observed. Now, on August 2, Germany sent 
ultimatum to an ultimatum to Belgium, demanding that she allow the 
Be gium German armies to cross her territory, promising to evacu- 

ate it after peace was concluded, and stating that, if she refused, her 
fate would be determined by the fortunes of war. Belgium replied that 
sh"^ had always been faithful to her international obligations, that the 
Belgium's attack upon her independence would constitute a flagrant 
reply violation of international law, that she would not sacri- 

fice her honor and the same time be recreant to her duty toward 
Europe, but that her army would resist the invader to the utmost 
of its ability. 

As Austria's ultimatum of July 23 meant the annihilation of the inde- 
pendence of one small state, Servia, Germany's ultimatum of August 2 
meant the annihilation of the independence of another small state, 
Belgium. Germany's action was the baser and the more dishonorable, 
as she had promised to respect the neutrality of the country which 
she was now about to destroy. 

The reason for this action was that the easiest way for German 
armies to get into France was over Belgian soil. Germany intended to 
crush France as rapidly as possible, then to turn upon Russia and crush 
her. The invasion of France direct from Germany would necessarily 
be slower, if possible at all, as that frontier was strongly fortified. 



THE ATTACK ON BELGIUM 617 

The official statement of the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, made in 

the Reichstag on August 4, declared that Germany was act- 

ing in self-defense: "Necessity knows no law. Our troops ment of the 

have occupied Luxemburg and have perhaps already entered German 

-r> , . ., ^ , , . . , , / . Chancellor 

on Belgian soil. Gentlemen, this is a breach of interna- 
tional law. The French government has, it is true, notified Brussels 
that it would respect the neutrality of Belgium as long ,< Necessity 
as the enemy respected it. But we know that France knows no 
stood ready for an invasion. France could wait, we could ^^ 
not. A French attack upon our flank in the lower Rhine might have 
been disastrous. Thus we have been obliged to ignore the just protests 
of the governments of Luxemburg and Belgium. The injustice, I speak 
frankly, the injustice that we are committing we will endeavor to make 
good as soon as our military aims have been attained. Anybody who is 
threatened as we are threatened and is fighting for his highest posses- 
sions can think only of one thing, how he is to attain his end, cost 
what it may." Thus the official, authoritative spokesman of Germany 
pronounced her own act unjust, thereby proclaiming the faithfulness 
of Belgium to all her obligations, admitted that Germany was doing 
Belgium a wrong, and that the action was in defiance of the law of 
nations. It was justified by necessity, he said. 

A nation of sLxty-five millions attacked a nation of seven millions, 
whose neutrality it had sworn to maintain, because, as the German Sec- 
retary of State, Jagow, said on that same August 4, statement of 
with frankness, "they had to advance into France by the ^°° J^^ow 
quickest and easiest way, so as to be able to get well ahead with their 
operations and endeavor to strike some decisive blow as early as pos- 
sible. It was a matter of life and death for them." 

England could correctly assert that she had worked for peace "up 
to the last moment, and beyond the last moment." Now she entered 
the war because she had vital interests in the independ- England en- 
ence of Belgium, and because of her explicit treaty obli- ^^''^ *^« ^" 
gations. For hundreds of years her policy had been to prevent the 
control of those coasts from being a menace to her own coast across the 
narrow channel as they would be in the hands of a strong military power. 
Over this question England had fought or acted repeatedly for centuries 
against the Spaniards, against the French; now it was to be against the 
Germans. That in protectmg her vital interests she would also be 



6i8 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 



keeping her solemn promises and defending a small and peaceful state 
against the wanton aggression of a ruthless and mighty military power, 
engaged, according to its own admission, in a flagrant violation of the 
law of nations, was to her vast moral advantage in securing the spon- 
taneous sympathy and support of her own people and widespread 
approval beyond her borders. 

On the 23d of July, 1914, there was a dull midsummer peace in Europe. 
By August 4 seven nations were at war. The responsibility for this 

tragic, monstrous, unnecessary 
crime against civilization, against 
humanity, was lightly assumed. 
The situation was created by the 
authorized heads of various states. 
Any power that in that crisis 
showed a willingness to delay, to 
negotiate, to confer, was working 
in the interest of peace. Any 
power that declined to do this, 
that adopted a peremptory at- 
titude, that issued ultimatums 
with incredibly short time limits, 
hastened the appalling entangle- 
ment and was ready for war, 
whether it desired or intended 
it or not. 

The opinion of the outside 
world as to where that respon- 
sibility lies has been overwhelmingly expressed. That opinion is shared 
by a state that had for thirty-two years been the ally of Austria and 
Opinion of Germany and was an ally in August, 1914. When asked 
on August I, by the German ambassador, what were 
Italy's intentions, the Italian Government replied through 
its Minister of Foreign Affairs that "as the war undertaken by Austria 
was aggressive and did not fall within the purely defensive character 
of the Triple Alliance, particularly in view of the consequences which 
might result from it according to the declaration of the German Am- 
bassador, Italy would not be able to take part in the war." 




Victor Emmanuel III 
King of Italy 



neutral 
nations 



MORAL INTERESTS INVOLVED 619 

THE WAR IN 1914 

Austria's determination to wreak her wrath upon Servia, to punish, 
humiliate, and master that small but independent and successful state, 
had led straight, and with incredible swiftness, to an appalling issue. 
Five great nations, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and 
England, and two small nations, Servia and Belgium, had passed, within 
a space of twelve momentous days, from a state of peace to one of war. 
From the Ural Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, from the North Sea 
to the Mediterranean, hundreds of millions of men found themselves 
caught in the meshes of a gigantic conflict, whose cost in human life 
and happiness and treasure must inevitably be tremendous. The 
world was stunned by the criminal levity with which Austria-Hungary 
and Germany had created this hideous situation. 

The sinister and brutal challenge was, however, accepted imme- 
diately and with iron resolution by those who had done their utmost 
during those twelve days to avert the catastrophe, and not only great 
powers like France and England, but small ones, like Belgium and 
Servia, never hesitated, but resolved to do or die. That the contest 
was not merely a material one, but that the most precious moral and 
spiritual interests were involved, was clearly seen and stated at the very 
beginning of the war by the responsible statesmen of France and Eng- 
land. In those early days Mr. Asquith, prime minister of Great. Britain, 
expressed the common resolution of the western powers when he de- 
clared: "We shall never sheathe the sword which we have war aims 
not lightly drawn until Belgium recovers in full measure all stated by 
and more than all that she has sacrificed, until France is ^^^ 
adequately secured against the menace of aggression, until the rights of 
the smaller nationaUties of Europe are placed upon an unassailable 
foundation, and until the military domination of Prussia Is wholly and 
finally destroyed." A cause dedicated to such aims as these was worthy 
of the supreme sacrifice it would pitilessly exact. 

Why these references to Belgium and France? Because, in the 
military plans of Germany, these two were to be overrun and con- 
quered first, then Russia, and then the dominance of Europe by Ger- 
many would be achieved and rendered unassailable. After that let 
the world look out. It would receive its orders from Berhn and it 
would know full well the meaning of disobedience. 



620 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Germany had demanded free passage for her troops through Belgium. 
King Albert, one of the unsullied heroes of a war rich in heroes, had 
The spirit of at that Critical moment embodied the spirit of his people 
Belgium Q^^^ ]^g^(j added lustre to the name of Belgium forever when, 

in reply to the arrogant demand, he announced that " the Belgian govern- 
ment is firmly resolved to repel with all the means in its power every 
attack upon its rights." Then the thunder-cloud broke. • The mighty 
German army burst upon the land, resolved to get to Paris by the shortest 
route, the valley of the Meuse. The fortress of Liege stood in the way. 
It was bombarded by powerful artillery and forced to surrender on 
August 7. Brussels was occupied on August 20. But the fall of Liege 
did not clear the route to France. Namur stood in the way and here the 
Belgians were aided by the French, and by the British, hurrying to the 
scene their "contemptible little army," as the Kaiser is said to have 
called it. Namur was occupied on August 22. Mons was next attacked 
and the French and English were compelled to begin a retreat. With- 
draw they must or the German armies would envelop them and a disaster 
like that of Sedan in 1870 might result. The great retreat from Mons 
southward continued day after day, night after night, rapid, harrowing, 
critical, incessant, annihilation constantly threatening. City after city 
in Northern France fell into the hands of the Germans, who advanced 
to within fifteen miles of Paris. The government of France was removed 
to Bordeaux. The completion of German victory seemed at hand. 
August was a month of gloom for the Allies. 

Then General Joffre, commander of the French armies, issued his 
famous order, stating that the retreat was over. To his generals he 
sent this message: "The hour has come to hold fast and to let yourselves 
be killed rather than to yield." And to the army Joffre issued this: 
"At the moment when we are about to engage in battle it is imperative 
that everyone should remember that the time has passed for looking 
backward; every effort must be devoted to attacking and repulsing the 
enemy. Troops that can no longer advance, must, at all cost, keep the 
ground they have won and be shot down where they stand rather than 
retreat. In the present circumstances no weakness can be tolerated." 

The decisive moment had arrived. There was no faltering, but the 
The Battle of whole French army was nerved to supreme effort. From 
the Marne September 5 to September 10, along a Hne of more than a 
hundred miles from Paris to Verdun, raged the famous Battle of the 



BATTLE OF THE MARNE 621 

Marne, one of the decisive battles of the world's history. The spirit 
in which these men fought was typified in General Foch, one of Joffre's 
subordinates, who at. a critical moment telegraphed to his chief: "My 
right is in retreat; my center is yielding. Situation excellent. I shall 
attack." And attack he did, with great success. 

The Germans were defeated. Their terrific, crushing blow, intended 
to eliminate the French from the war, had failed. They retired as 
precipitately as they had advanced, the French at their heels. Only 
when they were across the Aisne and in trenches already prepared for 
them were they safe. At the Battle of the Marne France had saved 
herself and Europe and the world. 

After the Battle of the Marne the Alhes sought to break through 
the German lines along the Aisne but were unsuccessful. Thereupon 
there ensued a race to the sea, an extension of the trenches north- 
ward to the English Channel. The Germans overran the western part 
of Belgium, seized Antwerp (October 10) and Ostend and tried to get to 
Dunkirk and Calais, but were arrested at the Yser river. Conquest of 
By the end of October the opposing sides were entrenched Belgium 
against each other all the way from Nieuport to Switzerland. The 
"war of positions," which was to last with only minor changes down to 
March, 1918, had begun. 

As the results of all these events the Germans were in possession 
of a large area of northeastern France and of nearly all of Belgium. 
The possession of this territory greatly augmented their ^power to make 
war, for it carried with it ninety per cent of the iron ore of France, and 
fifty per cent of the coal of France, and the harbors of the Belgian coast 
became favorable bases for the submarine warfare adopted later. 

The Germans had not only won great and rich territories in a two 
months campaign: they had also won undying hatred and a moral 
loathing so general and so intense that it is hard, if not impossible, 
to find its equal in human history. From the moment they stepped 
upon Belgian territory they trampled under foot all considerations of 
humanity, of decency, of honor. No savage ever tortured Belgian 
a helpless victim with a greater display of heartlessness and atrocities 
cruelty than Germany showed in her treatment of Belgium. Not only 
was conscienceless pillage and systematic looting the order of the day, 
not only were towns and cities fined and mulcted of enormous sums of 
money, not only were villages fired, not only were works of art and pubHc 



622 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

monuments destroyed, but great numbers of civilians, men, women, and 
little children, were murdered in cold blood or subjected to treatment 
worse than death. The Germans killed prisoners, they poisoned wells, 
they bombarded undefended towns and hospitals. It is no wonder that 
Belgium's most distinguished poet and man of letters, Maurice Maeter- 
linck, called the German "the foulest invader that the world has ever 
borne." A prosperous and peaceful people was ruined, and threatened 
with starvation from which it was only saved by the charity of the world. 
The martyrdom of Belgium is the deep damnation of modern militaristic 
Germany. The multitudinous seas will not suffice to wash out the 
abysmal guilt. 

Such was the course of events in western Europe after the fateful 
August 4, 1 914. Meanwhile events were occurring in the east and the 
Russian in- Southeast. Kussia, mobilizing far more rapidly than the 
vasion of Germans had supposed she could, invaded Eastern Prussia 

ermany about the middle of August, gaining several victories. The 

Germans were forced to withdraw some of their troops from the western 
front to meet this unexpected menace, and this contributed to the 
German defeat at the Marne. The victories of the Russians were short- 
lived, for under the command of General von Hindenburg' the Germans 
defeated them disastrously in the battle of Tannenberg (August 26- 
September i, 1914). Hindenburg was henceforth the idol of Germany. 

The Russians were more successful against Austria. Invading the 
Austrian province of Galicia they captured Tarnopol and Lemberg 
and Jaroslav and began the siege of Przemysl, which surrendered in 
March, 191 5. An invasion of Hungary was intended as the next step. 

As Austria was thus fully occupied with Russia, the Servians were 
able to expel the Austrian armies which had invaded their country 
(December, 19 14). 

Other events of those months of 19 14, which must be chronicled, 
are: the entrance of little Montenegro into the war out of sympathy 
for Servia, the Montenegrins being Servians by race (August 7) ; and the 
Turkey entrance of Turkey into the war on the side of the Central 

enters the Powers (November 3). The latter was an event of con- 
'^^ siderable importance. Though European Turkey had been 

greatly reduced as a result of the Balkan Wars, the Ottoman Empire was 
still extensive, including Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, 
Palestine, and Arabia, in all over seven hundred thousand square miles, 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 



623 




624 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

or an area more than three times as large as the German Empire, and 
with a population estimated at twenty-one million. Its capital, Con- 
stantinople, was a city of over a million inhabitants, and its location 
incomparable, lying, as it does, at the point where Europe and Asia meet, 
and barring the entrance to and the exit from the Black Sea, that is from 
southern Russia. The Sultan ruled over a most motley collection of 
peoples, over Turks, a minority of the whole population, and over Arabs, 
Greeks, Syrians, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, Jews and numerous 
other races. The only unity that these races knew was to be found 
in the oppression they all experienced from their government, which 
was an unrestrained tyranny. The government was strongly pro- 
German. Enver Pasha was minister of war, a man who had been a 
military attache in Berlin, and had formed the most intimate relations 
with the German military circles. During most of his reign the Emperor 
of Germany had striven successfully to build up German influence in 
Turkey and by 19 14 Turkey was the willing and eager tool of Germany, 
her army largely officered by Germans. The expected therefore occurred 
when the Turkish Government permitted two German warships to 
enter the Bosporous, whence they sailed into the Black Sea and bom- 
barded Russian ports. Russia thereupon declared war upon Turkey, 
November 3, 1914, and England and France immediately did the 
same. 

Turkey's entrance into the war was intended to be and was a threat 
at the Balkan states and at the British Empire, that is at India and 
Egypt. It involved Asia and Africa in the war, Mesopotamia, Syria, 
Palestine, Egypt. An immediate consequence was the dethronement of 
the Khedive of Egypt, who was plotting with the Sultan to expel the 
British. Great Britain declared Egypt a protectorate of the British 
Empire and appointed the uncle of the dethroned Khedive in his place, 
with the title of Sultan. Turkish attempts to invade Egypt and get 
control of the Suez Canal, thus cutting England's connection with 
India, were frustrated early in the following year (February, 191 5). 

Still another power entered the war almost at the beginning, Japan 
(August 23, 1 914). Japan had two reasons for participating. One was 
Japan enters loyalty to her alUance with Great Britain which, conchided 
the war originally in 1902, had been renewed in 1905 and 191 1. 

That treaty had been of the greatest service to Japan, increasing her 
international prestige and guaranteeing her territorial rights. It was a 



CONTROL OF THE SEAS 625 

defensive alliance, each side promising the other support in certain 
contingencies in case of war. 

Such a case having arisen, England now applied to Japan for assist- 
ance in protecting her trade in the East, and Japan loyally responded. 
But that protection could not be secured as long as Germany held her 
strong naval base at Kiauchau. The Japanese knew how Germany had 
acquired that base, seventeen years before, after having in conjunction 
with Russia and France forced Japan to relinquish the fruits of her 
victory in her war with China.^ They therefore took pleasure in re- 
quiting this injury and in expressing their demand in the same lan- 
guage that Germany had used to them twenty years before. On August 
17, 1914, an ultimatum was issued by Japan to Germany demanding that 
she withdraw her fleet and surrender Kiauchau as necessary "to the 
peace of the Far East" and requesting an answer by August 23. Ger- 
many sent no answer to this ultimatum, but the Kaiser telegraphed to 
Kiauchau: "It would shame me more to surrender Kiauchau to the 
Japanese than Berlin to the Russians." On August 23, war was de- 
clared by Japan against Germany, and by the middle of November 
she had conquered the German colony. From that time on until 1918 
her participation in the war was slight. She was, however, one of the 
Allies, having agreed with England, France, and Russia not to make a 
separate peace. 

Meanwhile another aspect of the war was being played upon the 
high seas. The immense importance to the AUies of the naval pre- 
ponderance of Great Britain was shown from the first days of the war 
and has been made each day increasingly apparent. The British won 
a naval victory near Helgoland in August, the Germans won a naval 
victory off the coast of Chili in November, which was avenged by Eng- 
land in a complete defeat of a German fleet off the Falkland Control of 
Islands (December 8). The total result of these events *^® ^^^^ 
was the sweeping of German naval vessels from the high seas and the 
botthng up of the main German fleet in the Kiel Canal; also the sweep- 
ing of German merchant shipping from the ocean. Now and then a 
German raider might still get out and do damage. The submarine 
danger was as yet not serious. Owing to Great Britain's practical 
control of the great water routes of communication the transport of 
troops to the scene of battle from England, Canada, Australia, South 
1 See above, pp. 577-57^- 



626 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Africa, and the transport of munitions and merchandise, and the ex- 
changes of commerce, could go on, in the main, unimpeded. The 
importance of this fact cannot be exaggerated. It enabled the Allies 
vigorously to prosecute the war, and it kept industrial and commercial 
life active, a source not only of comfort and convenience, but of wealth, 
and wealth was necessary to the maintenance in full and increasing 
vigor of armies and navies and all the various war services. 

Thus we see how crowded with decisive events were those months 
from August to December, 1914. The flame so lightly and joyously 
ignited by Austria and by Germany was spreading rapidly and por- 
tentously. By the end of that year ten nations were at war, Austria- 
Hungary, Germany, and Turkey on the one side, Servia, Russia, France, 
Belgium, Great Britain, Montenegro and Japan on the other. Two 
great nations, the United States and Italy, and many small ones, had 
declared their neutrality. Whether they would be able to maintain 
it, in a war which, as was already clear, affected every nation, not only 
in its economic life, but in its intellectual, moral, and spiritual outlook, 
remained to be seen. 

THE WAR IN 1915 

The year 1914 closed with the Allies holding the Germans on the 
western front, having defeated them at the Battle of the Marne. But 
the Germans had conquered all but a small section of Belgium, had 
conquered northeastern France, and had dug themselves in from the 
North Sea to Switzerland. Attempts on the part of the AlUes to dis- 
lodge them and to break through the line were made repeatedly in 191 5. 
At the Battle of Neuve Chapelle the English under Sir John French 
Battle of attacked over a front of a little more than four miles. The 

Neuve attack was preceded by the most terrific artillery engage- 

^^^ ^ ment ever known in warfare. On that narrow front more 

than three hundred British cannon opened fire on March 10. After 
they had prepared the way the infantry pressed forward, gaining a mile. 
On the two following days the Germans delivered repeated counter- 
attacks but without success. The British held their new front but the 
casualties were extremely heavy. A mere local dent had been made in 
the German line. The battle was important as showing sharply how 
tremendous must be the effort and the sacrifice if the Germans were to 
be driven out of France and Belgium. Both England and Germany lost 



THE EASTERN FRONT 627 

more in killed, wounded and captured than the English and Prussians 
had lost in the battle of Waterloo. 

From April 22 to April 26 occurred a similar battle on a narrow front, 
this time begun by the Germans. Here gas was used for the first time. 
The French Hne collapsed. Those who survived the gas Battle of 
retreated three miles. The battle is famous for this new Ypres 
feature of warfare, and for the remarkable coolness, heroism, and spirit 
of sacrifice of the Canadians. "On the Canadians the storm broke with 
its full force and Canadian militia repeated the glories of British regulars 
from Mons to the Marne. In British imperial history the Second Battle 
of Ypres will be memorable." But it broke no line and like the battle of 
Neuve Chapelle it was mere "nibbling," a word that now passed into 
current use to describe the character of the fighting. 

All through the summer of 191 5 there was only desultory fighting 
on the western front, broken by special attempts to break the line which 
would not break. One incident of importance was the relieving of Sir 
John French and the appointment of General Haig as commander in 
chief of the British armies. The issue was to prove that England had 
at last found her leader. 

Other disappointments were reserved for the Allies during that 
bitter year of 1915. Germany's original plan of campaign had been, 
as we have seen, first to crush France and to eliminate her from the war, 
then to turn eastward and eliminate Russia, after which she would 
dictate whatever peace she chose to Europe. The Battle of the Marne 
and the solid line of the French and Enghsh from Nieuport in Belgium 
to Switzerland had blocked this plan. France was not easily to be 
eliminated. Therefore the Germans adopted a new plan. The eastern 
namely, to crush and eliminate Russia, then to turn west- ^^^^ 
ward, settle accounts with France and bring England to her knees. Of 
course while attending to their eastern enemy, they must hold their 
western front tight, and even attack, if the opportunity offered. There 
must be no suspension or relaxation of effort anywhere, but the main 
emphasis must be put upon the eastern campaign, as it was the more 
inviting and promised the more immediate gains. There was an addi- 
tional argument in favor of making the main effort in the east. Hinden- 
burg, the new idol of Germany, from long years of study was minutely 
acquainted with all the natural features of that theater of war. What 
he had done at Tannenberg he could do again, and again, perhaps. 



628 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Therefore eastward the path of empire took its way. The develop- 
ments there were destined to exceed the wildest imagination of the 
Germans. After Tannenberg the Russians, recovering, resumed the 
offensive, and again invaded East Prussia, whereupon Hindenburg 
fell upon them, administering a crushing defeat in the Battle of the 
Mazurian Lakes (February 12, 191 5). The Russians lost in killed and 
wounded a hundred and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand of them 
were taken prisoners. 

This was a mere beginning. East Prussia was freed from the pres- 
ence of the Russians. But they had overrun Galicia, a northern prov- 
German in- '^^^^ "^^ Austria. They must be expelled and then no foreign 
vasion of soldiers would stand on the soil of the Central Empires. 

Moreover the war should be carried straight over into 
Russia. The tables must be turned, and turned they were in a mem- 
orable fashion. All through the summer, from April to August, a mam- 
moth drive of Germans and Austrians combined, under Hindenburg 
and Mackensen, went on over a wide front. Victory followed victory 
in rapid succession. The Russians were driven out of Galicia. Przemysl 
fell on June 2; Lemberg on June 22. Russian Poland was invaded. 
Warsaw, its capital, was captured on August 5. All of Poland was 
conquered and Lithuania and Courland were overrun. When the 
campaign was over the Russian line was still intact, but it had been 
forced far back and now ran from Riga, in the north, to Czernowitz, in 
the south, near the northern border of Roumania. 

It was a notable summer's work. Mackensen took his place beside 
Hindenburg, as a national hero. The process of Russian disintegration 
German which two years later was to lead to the shameful Treaty of 

conquest of Brest-Litovsk had begun. Russia had lost 65,000 square 
miles of territory, a territory larger than New England. 
The military statistics of this war are uncertain, being subject to no con- 
trol outside official circles, but it is said that Russian losses in killed and 
wounded were a million two hundred thousand and nearly a million in 
prisoners. The Russian commander. Grand Duke Nicholas, was re- 
moved from chief command and sent to the Caucasus. So much for 
the eastern front. As 19 14 had seen the Germans seizing Belgium and 
northern and eastern France, 191 5 had seen them seizing a large part of 
Russia. The Germans were entitled to the elation which they ex- 
perienced and which they volubly expressed. 



GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN 629 

The Allies suffered another notable discomfiture during that year 
191 5, and a serious diminution of prestige, this time in the extreme south- 
eastern point of Europe. They attempted the capture of Constanti- 
nople, the capital of the Turkish Empire, an extraordinarily difficult 
thing to do owing to topographical reasons. Could they accomplish 
this, then the Balkan States not yet in the war would probably enter it 
on the side of the Allies, and with that alignment Austria could be 
attacked and invaded from the south and east; also Turkey might be 
compelled to sue for peace or at any rate would be put on the defensive. 
And could the Allies control the Dardanelles and the Bosporous, they 
could secure a connection with Russia through the Black Sea. They 
could thus send to Russia the war supplies she so greatly needed and 
could receive from her the food supplies she produced. 

In February and March a British and French fleet tried to force the 
Dardanelles. Penetrating the channel as far as the "Narrows,'' they 
could get no farther. The shores were powerfully fortified, and in the 
battle between the forts and the ships of war, several of the latter were 
destroyed. The fleet was forced to withdraw. Constantinople could 
not be reached that way. Next an attempt was made by land. After 
a costly delay Anglo-French troops, reinforced by troops from Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand, called "Anzacs,"i who had been brought up 
by way of the Red Sea, landed on the peninsula of Gallipoli, Sir Ian 
Hamilton in command. But the Turks had had their warning and, 
under the command of a German general, Liman von Gallipoli 
Sanders, were ready for them. The landing was effected Campaign 
only at a heaw cost and the positions which the Allies confronted 
proved impregnable. A flanking movement from Suvla Bay likewise 
proved unsuccessful. The Alhes held on all through the year, but they 
were foiled and in December they abandoned the attempt. Their losses 
had been enormous and nothing had been accomplished, save that possi- 
bly the expedition had kept the Turks from pressing any attack upon 
the Suez Canal The reaction of this conspicuous and complete failure 
upon the hesitating Balkan States, Bulgaria and Greece, was disastrous 
They, hitherto neutral, began to think that the Central Powers would 
ultimately be victorious and thatit would be more prudent as weU as 
pleasanter to be on the winning side. 

1 A composite word made by the initial letters of the words Australian New 
Zealand Army Corps. 



630 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Bulgaria's dislike of Servia, Roumania, and Greece was intense; she 
resented bitterly the Treaty of Bucharest ^ and only awaited a favorable 
opportunity to tear it up. With the Russians retreating week after 
week and month after month before the terrific onslaughts of Hinden- 
burg and Mackensen, with the Turks and Germans blocking the straits 
of the Dardanelles and holding the British tightly to the coasts of Gal- 
lipoli, it seemed evident to Czar Ferdinand and to his minister Radosla- 
voff that the Germans were the predestined victors in this gigantic war. 
Bulgaria Therefore, after a disreputable display of double-dealing, 

enters the they enlisted Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers 
^^ (October 4, 191 5). This action of Bulgaria had two im- 

mediate consequences. It linked the Central Powers with Turkey, 
completing the "corridor" to the East, to Asia. And it sounded the 
doom of Servia. 

Servia had been the unwilling pretext of a war which had so soon 
broken all bounds, dragging the world with it toward the abyss. 
Austria's ultimatum to Servia had been the signal for the general melee. 
Austrian armies had immediately invaded Servia and had seized Bel- 
grade, though only after having encountered a stubborn resistance, 
during which the Servians had at one moment won a brilliant victory 
(August 20, 1 914, and succeeding days), the first general battle on a 
European front. The Servians, aided by the Montenegrins, fought 
desperately against the Austrian invasion, and by the middle of Decem- 
ber their victory was complete. Belgrade was reoccupied on December 
15. The Austrians retreated precipitately out of the land for which they 
had had such lordly contempt. Their retirement was a rout. Servia 
even invaded Austria. A Servian author may be pardoned for writing: 
"In ten days the Servian victory over five Austrian army corps' was 
complete. Since the days when Scipio saved Rome from Hannibal, or 
when England destroyed the might of Spain, the world has never seen 
such a spectacle, and never has victory been more deserved." General 
Misitch was the hero of the Servian hour. 

Such was the first chapter of Servian history in the Great War, 
The second was very different. The Germans and Austrians, fresh 
from their successes in Russia and Galicia, invaded Serbia in great 
strength in October, 191 5, under General von Mackensen. At the 
same time the Bulgarians invaded her from the east. For two months 

1 See pp. 605-606. 



CONQUEST OF SERVIA 631 

the Servians fought single-handed and with unquenchable valor against 
the overwhehning forces of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria, Conquest of 
left in the lurch, moreover, by their ally Greece, which was ^^^'^^ 
by treaty bound to aid them in a contingency like this. Servia was com- 
pletely conquered and crushed. A remnant only of her armies was able 
to reach safety on the coast of Albania, whence it was transported in 
Allied vessels to the island of Corfu. It is difficult to find words ade- 
quately to characterize the awful retreat across the barren Albanian 
Mountains, the unspeakable hardships endured. The war exacted 
another martyrdom. The Austro- Germans followed up their conquest 
by overrunning Montenegro (January, 1916). 

Simultaneously with this conquest and extinction of Servia another 
train of events was being started, whose full significance was not to be 
made manifest until two more eventful and discouraging years had 
passed. In October, 191 5, an Anglo-French force landed at Salonica, 
the leading port of Greece. It had come to aid Servia in response to 
an invitation from the prime minister of Greece, Venizelos. Con- 
stantine, the King of Greece and a brother-in-law of the German Em- 
peror, did not propose to aid Servia, although by treaty bound to do 
so. He now dismissed Venizelos and began a tortuous pro-German 
policy which was ultimately to cost him his throne. 

The Anglo-French army marched northward to help the Servians, 
but was unsuccessful and had to withdraw behind the lines of Salonica. 
But out of the union of this force, subsequently greatly The lines 
enlarged, with the reorganized and reinvigorated remnant °^ Salonica 
of the Servian army which had found refuge in the island of Corfu, was 
to emerge in time salvation for the stricken land. 

While the situation had, during the year, grown worse for the AllieE. 
in the East and in the Balkans, there had been a distinct and a promising 
gain for them in another quarter. Italy had entered the war on their 
side. For over thirty years Italy had been a member of the Triple Alli- 
ance, concluded in 1882, with Germany and Austria-Hungary. That 
alliance she had renewed as late as 191 2 and that renewal was to run until 
1920. But when the war broke out in 1914 and when Italy was asked by 
her allies to cooperate with them, she dechned on the ground that she was 
obliged to aid them only if they were attacked. Instead of itaiy enters 
being attacked they had themselves begun the war. Italy *^® ^^ 
therefore adopted a policy of neutrahty, which she maintained until 



632 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

May 23, 1915. Then, at the moment when the Russians were in full 
retreat, she entered the war on the side of the western powers. This was 
the great gain of the year for the Allies and one that bade fair to redress 
the balance of power in their favor. 

The Itahan government, in acting thus, was but responding to a 
widespread popular demand. Ever since the Kingdom of Italy had 
been formed in the decade between 1859 and 1870 the Italians had 
been restless under the thought that their unification had been in- 
complete, that outside the boundaries of the state as determined at 
that time there were hundreds of thousands of Italians still subject 
to Austria, in the Trentino to the north, and in Trieste and the penin- 
sula of Istria to the northeast. This was Italia Irredenta or Unre- 
deemed Italy. This territory the Italian government now endeavored 
to acquire, at first peacefully through direct negotiations with Austria- 
Hungary, then, that method failing, through war. Another motive 
also influenced the government, the insistent popular demand that 
Italy do her share in the work of the defense of civilization against Kultur, 
of democracy and liberty against autocracy and despotism. The strong 
instinct of the Italian people was that they belonged with the Allies 
by reason of the principles they held in common with them. Their 
action in entering the war was naturally greeted with enthusiasm in 
France and England, and with deep resentment in Germany and Austria. 

The intervention of Italy was followed shortly by that of the little 
independent republic of San Marino, a state which claims to be the 
oldest in Europe and which is located on a spur of the Apennines, en- 
tirely surrounded by Italy, and which has a population of about twelve 
thousand. San Marino is the sole survivor of those city-republics which 
were so numerous in Italy during the Middle Ages. She declared war 
upon the Central Powers, June 3, 191 5. 

Another Allied gain during 1914 and 1915 was the conquest of the 
German colonies. Japan seized Kiauchau, as we have seen, soon after 
Conquest ^^^ entrance into the war. In Africa, British and French 

of German troops easily overran Togoland and Kamerun. German 
coomes Southwest Africa was conquered by South African troops 

under General Smuts, though the conquest was not completed until 
early in 191 7. A campaign against German East Africa was begun early 
and resulted in soon freeing that colony of most of the German troops, 
some of whom, however, remained untracked and undefeated, apparently, 



VERDUN 633 

until the end of the war. In the main the vast German colonial empire 
had shrunk to very small proportions by the close of 191 5. 

In the same year, 191 5, occurred an event which shocked the world 
by its wanton and cowardly barbarity and which was in time to have 
far-reaching consequences, the sinking, on May 7, of the mammoth 
Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, off the coast of Ireland. This incident 
may best be described later. It should, however, be included in this 
untoward list of events which darkened the year 191 5. 

THE WAR IN 1916 
We have seen that Germany's original plan of war was to crush 
France first and then to turn against Russia and force her to her knees. 
This plan had been attempted in 1914, but had not succeeded. France 
had not been crushed but had, in the famous Battle of the Marne, de- 
feated the Germans, driving them precipitately back to the Aisne, had 
saved her o^vn field army intact, had saved Paris and the most important 
fortresses of France, Verdun, Belfort, Toul and Epinal. Unconquered 
and undaunted France was all through 1915 and in 1916 xhe war 
the hope and the mainstay of the world, the flaming and map^eariy 
resolute soul of the Allied cause. After a year and a half 
of war Russia had, however, been badly defeated and had given many 
signs of that weakness and disintegration that were later to develop so 
rapidly and appallingly. England was not yet fully conscious of the 
part she must play; she had not yet brought herself to adopt universal 
military service although she had accomplished wonders m volunteering^ 
Italy had done little to justify the great hopes with which the Allies had 
greeted her entrance into the war. Belgium had been virtually wiped 
off the map; so had Servia, Montenegro and Albania; all had been 
overrun by the armies of the Central Powers and were securely held. 
France, however, stood defiant and resolute, tense, straining every nerve, 
steeled for every contingency. 

But France had suffered terribly and the German military authorities 
bdieved it was possible to do, in 1916, what they had failed to accom- 
plish in 1914. This is the meaning of Verdun. The German General 
Staff thought that, by delivering one terrific, irresistible, deadly blow 
against the French army, they could smash it. Then peace would be 
in sight, as France would recognize the hopelessness of -further struggle, 
the sheer impossibihty of ever recovering Alsace-Lorraine. Verdun 



634 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

was a strong position, but, once taken, no equally stout defense could 
be made between there and Paris. The capital would fall and the fall 
of Paris would certainly mean the elimination of France. Incidentally, 
as the German Crown Prince was in command near Verdun, blinding 
military glory would irradiate the person of the heir to the Prussian 
throne. Could anything be more desirable or more appropriate? 

On February 21, 1916, at 7.15 in the morning the storm broke upon 
Verdun, a place long famous in the mihtary annals of France, but des- 
tined now to win a glory beyond compare. Never had there 
been so pulverizing an artillery fire as that which inaugu- 
rated this attack. The Germans had made enormous preparations, had 
enormous armies and supplies. It seemed humanly impossible to prevent 
them from blasting their way through. But the impossible was done. 
The French disputed every inch of ground, with incredible coolness and 
inexhaustible bravery. Nevertheless they lost position after position 
and in four days of frenzied fighting were driven back four miles. Then 
French reinforcements arrived, hurried thither by thousands of motors. 
And one of Joffre's most brilliant subordinates, Petain, reached the scene 
and infused new energy into the army of defense. Superb and spirit- 
stirring was Petain's cry to his soldiers: "Courage, comrades! We'll 
get them." 

It is impossible to summarize this battle, for it raged for six months, 
from February to October, and was characterized by a multitude of 
incidents. The fighting back and forth for critical positions continued 
week after week and month after month. Douaumont and Vaux 
are the names of two subsidiary forts which stand forth most con- 
spicuously in the murderous welter of repeated attack and counter- 
attack, of thrust and counter-thrust. The Germans were resolved to 
take Verdun, cost what it might. They were ready to pay the price 
but victory they would have. They paid the price, in irreparable 
losses, but victory they did not win. The French stiffened, under 
" They shall Petain and later under Nivelle, and with the electrifying 
not pass!" ^ry: " lis ne passeront pas! " "They shall not pass," they 
baffled the fury of the enemy and at the end pitched him out of most of 
the positions he had won. Verdun did not fall. The military reputa- 
tions of Petain and Nivelle had grown enormously and the latter soon 
succeeded Joffre as commander in chief. The Crown Prince did not 
emerge from this enterprise irradiated with any bUnding effulgence of 



BATTLE OF THE SOMME 635 

glory. His experiences were however calculated to make him a wiser if 
not a better man. 

The course and outcome of the later phases of the Verdun campaign 
were affected by another campaign which was being carried on simul- 
taneously on another sector of the long line that ran from Battle of 
Belgium through France to Switzerland. This was the *^® Somme 
Battle of the Somme. This was an Anglo-French attack, stretching from 
Arras to some distance south of the Somme river, the English under 
General Haig, the French under Foch, the Germans under Hindenburg, 
who had been transferred to the west after his great successes in the east. 
England was now striking a new pace, which she was to continue and to 
increase, in participation in the war on land. In 1914 she had had only 
a small regular army of a hundred thousand men. This was rapidly 
increased by volunteering which achieved notable proportions but 
not notable enough. Finally in January, 1916, she had adopted con- 
scription for single men, and, in May, for married men as well. Thus 
she now had universal service for all between the ages of 18 and 41. 
She was training the new recruits hastily and was increasing her mu- 
nition supplies enormously. She had taken over more and more of 
the line until she was now manning about ninety miles from the' sea 
to the Somme. 

The people of the Allied countries expected that their armies, thus 
enlarged and elaborately equipped, would attempt to break through 
the German lines. The Battle of the Somme was an endeavor to bring 
to an end the long deadlock on the western front. After a terrific 
bombardment, which had by this time become the customary prelude 
to an offensive, the general assault was begun on July i. For a few 
days the Allies made progress, though on the whole very slowly. The 
railroad centers Bapaume and Peronne were their objectives. The 
German line stiffened and fiercely counter-attacked. The battle dragged 
and the rainy season set in, making it almost impossible to move the 
heavy guns over the muddy roads. While both the English Result of 
and the French took a number of towns and considerable *e battle 
bodies of prisoners, they were unable to attain their objectives. All 
through the summer and well into the fall the desperate struggle went on, 
dying down in October. The total area won by the Allies was small, 
about 1 20 square miles. Nowhere had they advanced more than seven 
miles from their starting point. Nevertheless Haig was right when he 



636 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

announced that the campaign had been a success for three reasohs, 
namely, because it had reheved Verdun ; because, by holding large masses 
of Germans on the western front, it had enabled Russia to win a con- 
siderable victory on the eastern front ; and because it had worn down the 
German strength. It was in the second phase of this Battle of the 
Somme that a new and redoubtable engine of war was introduced by the 
British, powerful armored motor cars, quickly nicknamed "tanks," which 
could cross trenches, break through barbed-wire entanglements, and at 
the same time could scatter a murderous fire all about from the guns 
within. Machine gun fire against them was entirely ineffectual. Only 
when squarely hit by powerful missiles from big cannon were the tanks 
disabled. 

There was also serious fighting during 191 6 on the Italian and on the 
Russian fronts. The Austrians, supposing the Russians had learned their 
Italy lesson in the previous year and that they would think twice 

threatened before again assuming the offensive, left their eastern front 
lightly guarded and prepared to punish the Italians, their historic enemy, 
and now more hated than ever because of their "treachery" in breaking 
the Triple Alliance. In May the Austrians began an attack from the 
Tyrol. Controlling the passes of the Alps, they were able to form a large 
army and to threaten Verona and Vicenza. The Italians resisted desper- 
ately but lost a large number of guns and men. They also lost about 
two hundred and thirty square miles of Italian territory. But the 
Austrians had weakened their eastern front so seriously that the Russians 
were winning great victories over them in that theater. This in turn 
reacted upon the Italian campaign by forcing the Austrians to recall 
many troops in order to ward off the new danger. Therefore they were 
obliged to forego for the time being their dream of breaking into the 
plains of Venetia. 

While the Russians had been forced by Hindenburg and Mackensen 
to make a great retreat in 191 5, they had not been put out of the war 
Bnisiloff's and, in June, 1916, they began, under Brusiloff, a new offen- 
drive give, this time between the Pripet Marshes and the Austrian 

province of Bukowina. Brusiloff's drive was for a while successful and 
netted far larger territorial gains than were made on the western front 
in the Battle of the Somme. Brusiloff was able to push the Austrians 
back from twenty to fifty miles, to take a large number of prisoners and 
to capture many towns and cities, including the important ones of Lutsk 



ROUMANIA 637 

and Czernowitz. The campaign lasted from June to October, but after 
the first month no great progress was made and the offensive gradually 
wore down and stopped. Russia was far from having recovered what 
she had lost in the previous year. Indeed, she recovered practically 
nothing in the north from the Pripet marshes to the Baltic Sea. 

The interplay of these various campaigns was unmistakable. The 
Somme helped Verdun, the Russian drive helped Italy by freeing her 
of the Austrians and by enabling her to begin an offensive along the 
Isonzo which yielded Gorizia on August 9 and brought her to within 
thirteen miles of coveted Trieste. But while there was this interplay, 
this relieving of pressure in one region by bringing pressure to bear in 
another, the team-work was most imperfect. The desirability of a 
unified command of all the Allied forces had hardly begun to dawn. 
It took the experiences of another year and more to drive that idea 
into the minds of the governing authorities of the various countries 
concerned. 

The unhappy consequences of the lack of proper coordination in a 
common cause were conspicuously shown in another field in this same 
year of 1916, namely, in Roumania. Roumania entered Roumania 
the war on the side of the Allies on August 27, 191 6. Her enters the 
chief motive was to assure "the realization of her national 
unity," by which phrase was meant the liberation from Austria-Hungary 
of the three million Roumanians who lived in the eastern section of the 
Dual Monarchy, in Transylvania, and their incorporation in the kingdom 
of Roumania. The principle of nationality was at the basis of Rou- 
mania's action, the principle that kindred peoples desiring to be united 
should be united. Roumania's declaration of war was naturally warmly 
applauded by the Allies. It was followed immediately by a Roumanian 
invasion of Transylvania, which achieved very considerable successes. 

But the Germans were resolved to prevent this threatened mutilation 
of their ally and also this threatened cutting of the connection between 
the Central Powers and Turkey. Roumanian success, if Roumania 
unimpeded, would widen out into the Balkans and imperil co^iQuered 
the famous "corridor" through Bulgaria and Servia. The German 
General Staff determined, therefore, to strike with all the force at its com- 
mand, to deal a blow that should be both swift and memorable. Two 
large armies composed of Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians and 
Turks, and under the command of Falkenhayn, were sent against 



638 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Roumania. They conquered the southern part of the kingdom with com- 
parative ease and entered Bucharest, the capital, on December 6. What 
was left of the Roumanian army withdrew to the north. Jassy became 
the provisional seat of Roumanian government. Peace was not con- 
cluded until much later, but meanwhile the Central Powers controlled 
most of the territory of Roumania, and exploited its rich resources in 
wheat and oil. The corridor to Constantinople was widened rather 
than cut. From this time forth the German ambition to create a Middle 
Europe, dominated by Germany, became more and more pronounced 
and more and more insistent. 

The Roumanian disaster was due to the immense superiority of 
German resources, equipment and generalship; also to the mistakes of 
Roumania. One of these mistakes was the lateness of her decision to 
enter the war. None of the AlUes was in a position to help her, except 
Russia. Had Roumania declared war in June at the moment of Bru- 
siloff's great victories, the outcome might have been very different. 
As it was she declared it when Brusiloff's drive had been brought to a 
standstill. This was but one more proof of the fact that the AlHes must 
bring about a closer adjustment of their efforts, if they were to win. 

One more state entered the European War in 1916, Portugal. On 
February 23, Portugal seized the German ships in her harbors, claiming 
Portugal ^^^^ ^^^ shortage of tonnage created by Germany's sub- 

enters the marine campaign justified the action. Whereupon Germany 
^" declared war upon her, March 9. A few days later it was 

officially announced by the Portuguese minister to the United States that 
"Portugal is drawn into the war as a result of her long-standing alhance 
with England, an alliance that has withstood unbroken the strain of five 
hundred years." This, it is curious to note, is a reference to a treaty 
signed in London on June 16, 1373, by which each country pledged itself 
to assist the other in case of war, a treaty quite as legitimate as that of 
the Triple Alliance, much more venerable, and far less injurious to the 
welfare of Europe. During all these centuries the Anglo-Portuguese 
Alliance has continued, frequently reaffirmed, the friendship it was 
designed to bring about still exists, the treaty concluded in 1373 has been 
broken by neither party and is still considered in force. Portugal 
participated in the war by sending an army to France and by aiding 
England in Africa. 

The year 19 16 witnessed also a great naval engagement between Eng- 



BATTLE OF JUTLAND 639 

land and Germany, the Battle of Jutland. England had given since the 
outbreak of the war remarkable evidence of her might upon the ocean. 
The mobilization of her fleet in the opening days was quite as services of 
noteworthy in its way as the mobilization of the German t^h^^British 
army, and as the latter entered forthwith upon a career of 
victory, so also did the former. The pressure of the British navy began 
at once to be felt where it was intended it should be, in Germany. A 
blockade of the German coast was estabUshed at the very outset, which 
was destined to be made steadily more effective. Germany's merchant 
shipping was swept from the ocean, the vast .fabric of her sea-borne com- 
merce collapsed. The British fleet prevented Germany from unporting 
such essentials as foodstuffs, petroleum, cotton, coffee, rubber, zinc, tin, 
so necessary in the work of war. The blockade was not perfect, as now 
and then a German raider could get through, sure, however, in the end, 
to be hunted down. But the attention of the world, the attention 
even of England herself, was not riveted upon this incessant naval war 
as it was upon the military operations on land. One reason for this was 
that the naval war was silent and unseen, although its effects were most 
important. Another was that the war on land was bitterly contested 
and gave rise to numberless incidents, was a tense, critical and doubtful 
struggle, while the war on the sea was, generally speaking, devoid of 
incident. England's command of her element was never in doubt, and 
was even chaUenged only infrequently. Submarines could and did do 
occasional damage, even in one instance sinking three English war 
vessels, and there had been two or three sea fights between small fractions 
of the 'fleets, Germany winning a victory in the early days off Chih, 
England a far more significant one subsequently off the Falkland 
Islands. These events were, however, of minor importance. But the 
n^ain German fleet stuck tightly to its base, the harbor of Kiel, and the 
unremitting, perpetual stress of the blockade offered no sensations to a 
world which was surfeited with them as a result of the land warfare. 

But on May 31, 1916, the German High Seas fleet, commanded by 
Admiral von Scheer, steamed forth, and skirted up the western coast of 
Denmark. Sighted by the British scouts under Admiral Beatty, about 
3.30 in the afternoon, an engagement immediately began, the main 
British squadron, under Admiral Jellicoe, coming up only Battle of 
later. The battle continued for several hours until darkness J'^*'^" 
came on, between eight and nine. It was the greatest naval battle since 



640 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Trafalgar -and, in the strength and power of the units engaged, un- 
doubtedly the greatest in all history. The result was inconclusive. 
Both sides lost important ships but both claimed to be victorious. That 
the real victor, however, was England was proved by the fact that the 
German fleet was obliged to return to Kiel and did not again emerge from 
that refuge. Britannia still ruled the wave, and it was extremely for- 
tunate for the safety of democracy in England, France, Italy, and the 
United States, and for liberty everywhere, that she did. 

Had England rendered no other service than this of making the 
seas safe for freedom and dangerous for despotism, the debt of humanity 
to her would be incalculable. But she was doing far more than this. 
The utterances of her statesmen, Hke those of France, from the first 
of August, 1914, defined the issues at stake, and set forth adequately 
the appalHng gravity of the crisis. Not only were those utterances 
profoundly educative but they were veritable trumpet blasts, summon- 
ing to action, action, action, in the interest of all that men in Western 
Europe and in America had long held most precious. In the darkest 
hours, and there were many such during those first three years, there 
was no faltering in high places, no talk of compromise of right with 
wrong, no weakening of resolution, no abatement of demand that this 
world be made safe for civiUzed men. It must never be forgotten that 
the leaders of France and England, and the nations they represented, 
were constant and valorous defenders of the New World, as of the Old, 
that it was their heroism and their immeasurable spirit of sacrifice 
that barred the way of a vulgar and conscienceless tyrant toward uni- 
versal domination. Never did men die in a holier cause. And they 
died in enormous numbers, literally by the million. 

ENTRANCE OF THE UNITED STATES INTO THE WAR 

In such a contest as that the United States belonged, body and soul. 
If she was to preserve a shred of self-respect, if she was to maintain 
America inviolate the honor of the American name, if she was to 

and the war safeguard the elementary rights of American citizens, 
if she was bound in any sense to be her brother's helper in the 
defense of freedom in the world, then she must take her stand shoul- 
der to shoulder with the hosts of freemen in Europe who were giving 
and had long been giving the last full measure of devotion to that cause, 



ENTRANCE OF THE XJNITED STATES 641 

then she must spend her manhood and her wealth freely and without 
complaint, as France and England and Belgium and Servia had 
done. 

From very early in the war there were Americans who endeavored 
to arouse their country to a sense of its danger and its duty, to persuade 
it to prepare, to fire it with the resolve to keep the nation's 'scutcheon 
clean. Among those who, by their quick and intelligent appreciation 
of the situation, by their courage and activity, rendered invaluable 
service in the campaign of national education were Ex-President Roose- 
velt and General Leonard Wood. 

From August, 1914, to April, 191 7, America passed through a 
painful, humiliating, and dangerous experience. Her declaration of 
war was the expression of the wisdom she distilled from that experi- 
ence. Her entrance into the war was the most important event of the 
year 191 7, though not immediately the most important, for the col- 
lapse of Russia, occurring also in that year, had a quicker and more 
direct bearing upon the military situation. But in the end, if America 
kept the faith, she could tip the scales decisively. 

We entered the war, finally, because Germany forced us in, be- 
cause she rendered it absolutely impossible for us to stay out unless 
we were the most craven and pigeon-hearted people on the earth. 
Anyone who counted on that being the case was entertaining a notion 
for which he could certainly cite no evidence in our previous 
history. 

How did Germany force us into this war? What specific things 
did she do that could be answered in the end in one way and one way 
only? 

The record is a long one, of offenses to the moral, the intellectual, 
the spiritual, the material interests of America. First, the wanton 
attack upon Serbia, a small state, by two bullies, Austria and Germany, 
and the flouting of all suggestions of arbitration or attempts to settle 
international difficulties peacefully, methods in which America believed, 
as had been shown by her own repeated use of them, and German 
by her enthusiastic support of the efforts of the two Hague o^enses 
Conferences to perfect those methods and to win general adhesion to 
them. Second, the invasion of Belgium and the martyrdom of that 
country, amid nameless indignities and inhumanities. The indigna- 
tion of America was spontaneous, widespread, and intense, nor has 



642 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

it shown any tendency to abate from that day to this. The senti- 
ment of horror, thus needlessly aroused, coupled with admiration for 
the brave resistance of the Belgians and sympathy for their sufferings, 
contributed powerfully to the creation of that state of mind which 
finally gained expression on April 6, 1917. 

But the conquest and the inhuman treatment of Belgium was no 
direct infringement of our rights. The national indignation was pro- 
foundly stirred, the national sympathy aroused, but neither the sov- 
ereignty of the government nor the persons or property of the citizens 
of the United States were affected. These were, however, not long to 
remain immune from attack. German and Austrian ofl&- 
cials, accredited to our government and enjoying the 
hospitahty of our country, proceeded to use their positions "here for the 
purpose of damaging Germany's enemies. They fomented strikes among 
American munition workers and seamen ; they caused bombs to be placed 
on ships carrying munitions of war; they plotted incendiary fires, and 
conspired to bring about the destruction of ships and factories. In 191 5 
the ambassador of Austria-Hungary, Dumba, and the German mihtary 
and naval attaches, Papen and Boy-Ed, were caught in such activities, 
and were forced to leave the country. Under the supervision of Papen 
a regular office was maintained to procure fraudulent passports, by 
lying and by forgery, for German reservists. American territory was 
used as a base of supplies, and military enterprises against Canada and 
against India were hatched by Germans on American soil. These 
German plots were in gross defiance of our position as a neutral and of 
our sovereignty as an independent nation. The German Embassy in 
Washington was a nest of scoundrels, plotting arson, and murder also, 
since the incendiary fires and explosions cost many innocent lives. 

While the diplomatic representatives of Germany were engaged in 
plotting criminal enterprises against Americans at home, the German 
German sub- government itself had embarked upon a course of procedure 
marine policy ^.j^g^j- inevitably ended in the destruction of American lives 
and property on the high seas. In February, 191 5, Germany proclaimed 
the waters around the British Isles "a war zone" and announced that 
enemy ships found within that zone would be sunk without warning. 
Neutrals were expected to keep their ships and citizens out of this area. 
If they did not, the responsibihty for what might happen would be theirs, 
not Germany's. 



GERMAN SUBMARINE POLICY 643 

Such was the announcement of Germany's submarine policy, a 
policy that was to have more momentous consequences than its authors 
imagined. A submarine is a war vessel and as such has a perfect right 
to attack an enemy war vessel without warning and sink her if she can. 
But neither a submarine nor any other war vessel has any right, under 
international law, to sink a merchantman belonging to the enemy or 
belonging to a neutral, except under certain conditions, and one of the 
conditions is that the persons on board, crew and passengers, shall be 
removed to the ship attacking or their lives otherwise absolutely safe- 
guarded. 

President Wilson, six days after the German proclamation, dis- 
patched a note to Germany announcing- that the United States would 
hold the German government to "a strict accountabiUty " should any 
American ships be sunk or American Uves lost, and that the United 
States would take all steps necessary "to safeguard American lives 
and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of 
their acknowledged rights on the high seas." 

To this the German government repHed that neutral vessels en- 
tering the war zone "will themselves bear the responsibiUty for any 
unfortunate accidents that may occur. Germany disclaims all respon- 
sibiUty for such accidents- and their consequences." This was a clear 
announcement that not only did she propose to sink enemy merchant- 
men, but neutral merchantmen as well, were they found within the 
prohibited zone, without removing the passengers to safety or even 
giving them the warning necessary to enable them to take to the hfe- 
boats, which, on the high seas, would themselves not be places of safety 
but which at least might perhaps give some chance for life. 

On March 28, a British steamer, the Falaha, was torpedoed and one 
American was drowned. On May i, an American ship, the Gulf light, 
was torpedoed without warning. The vessel managed to The Faiaba 
remain afloat and was later towed into port, but the captain '^^^^ 
died of heart failure caused by the shock, and two of the crew who 
jumped overboard were drowned. The government of the United States 
began at once to investigate the case, as here apparently were all the 
elements calling for strict accountabihty. But before the investigation 
was completed, indeed before a week had passed, the case was over- 
shadowed by another, the sinking of the Lusitania. 

Germany's ruthless submarine campaign, in force since February, 



644 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

had resulted by the first of May in the sinking of over sixty merchant 
ships in the war zone, several of them belonging to neutral nations, with 
a loss of about two hundred and fifty lives, all of them the lives of non- 
combatants. Germany had deliberately adopted a policy that involved 
the killing of as many noncombatants, hitherto protected by inter- 
national law and the usages of warfare among civilized nations, as might 
be necessary to enable her to achieve her ends. What she had done on 
land to hundreds and thousands of peaceful, unarmed, non-fighting 
people in Belgium and France she was now ready and resolved to do 
on the sea. But while she was torpedoing many vessels, yet England's 
commerce went on as before, thousands of ships entering and clear- 
ing British ports, and Great Britain was transporting an army to 
France without the loss of a single man. As the German people had 
been told that the submarines would quickly bring England to her 
knees and as they were not doing so, something spectacular and sen- 
sational must be achieved to justify the promises and expectations, and 
to silence criticism or discouragement at home. Consequently, the 
largest trans-Atlantic British liner still in service was selected for de- 
struction. The world, it was believed, would then take notice and 
people would think twice before entering the war zone. On May 7, the 
Lusitania was torpedoed twice without warning and sank in 

The Lusitania , , . -xt i i i i i 

less than twenty mmutes. JN early twelve hundred men, 
women, and children were drowned, among them over a hundred Ameri- 
cans. This cold-blooded, deliberate murder of innocent noncombatants 
was the most brilliant achievement of Germany's submarine campaign 
and was celebrated with enthusiasm in Germany as a great "victory." 
The rest of the world regarded it as both barbarous and cowardly. The 
indignation of Americans at this murder of Americans was' universal and 
intense. When, three years later, American soldiers in France went 
over the top, in the campaign of 1918, shouting ^^ Lusitania" at their 
foes, they were but expressing the deep-seated indignation of an out- 
raged people, an indignation and resentment which time had done 
nothing to assuage. 

On May 13, President Wilson dispatched a message to Germany 
denouncing this act as a gross violation of international law, demanding 
that Germany disavow it and make reparation as "far as reparation is 
possible," and declaring that the government of the United States would 
not "omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its 



THE "LUSITANIA" 645 

sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its 
citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment." 

Germany repUed on May 28, evading the main issues of the Ameri- 
can note and making many assertions that were quickly proved to be 
Hes. A correspondence ensued between the two governments, in which 
the President repeated his demand for disavowal and all possible repa- 
ration. In the end Germany offered to pay for the lives lost but refused 
to admit that the sinking of the ship was illegal. No agreement was 
reached between the two nations. No action, however, was taken. 

All through 191 5, torpedoing of vessels continued, and several Ameri- 
cans were drowned. The government steadily asserted our rights, 
the German government evading the fundamental principles involved, 
trying to confuse the issue by raising irrelevant points. 

On March 24, 19 16, occurred another major event in this campaign 
of indiscriminate murder of innocent noncombatants, namely the torpedo- 
ing without warning of an English ship, the Sussex, while The Sussex 
crossing the English Channel. Two Americans were injured <=»s« 
and about seventy others, who were on board, were ei^dangered. Presi- 
dent Wilson again protested and declared the United States could "have 
no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire al- 
together," unless the German government "should now immediately 
declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine 
warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels." Finally, on 
May 4, Germany agreed that henceforth merchant vessels should not be 
sunk without warning and without saving human lives, unless these ships 
should attempt to escape or offer resistance. But she appended a con- 
dition, namely that, the United States should compel Great Britain 
to observe international law. If the United States should not succeed, 
then Germany "must reserve to itself complete liberty of decision." 

President Wilson accepted the promise and repudiated the con- 
dition on the ground that our plain rights could not be made contingent 
by Germany upon what any other power should or should not do. To 
this note Germany sent no reply. 

That the promise was entirely insincere, that it was the intention 
to keep it only as long as it should be convenient, that ruthless submarine 
warfare was to be resumed whenever it seemed likely to be successful, 
was admitted later by the German. Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg. 
Sinkings continued to occur from time to time throughout 1916, and 



646 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

finally, on January 31, 191 7, the mask of hypocrisy and duplicity was 
thrown aside and a policy of unrestricted and ruthless submarine war- 
Unrestricted ^^^^ ^^^ proclaimed. Germany announced that beginning 
submarine the next day, February i, she would prevent "in a zone 
war are around Great Britain, France and Italy, and in the Eastern 

Mediterranean, all navigation, that of neutrals included. . . . All ships 
met within that zone will be sunk." The insulting concession was made 
that one American passenger ship per week might go to England, if it 
were first painted in stripes, the breadth of which was indicated, and if 
it carefully followed a route laid down by Germany. " Give us two months 
of this kind of warfare," said the German Foreign Secretary, Zimmer- 
mann, to Ambassador Gerard, on January 31, "and we shall end the war 
and make peace within three months." 

There was only one answer possible to such a note as this, unless 
the people of the United States were willing to hold their rights and 
liberties subject to the pleasure and interest of Germany. On Febru- 
ary 3 the President severed diplomatic relations with Germany, re- 
called our ambassador and dismissed von Bernstorff. Toward the end 
of the month Secretary Lansing made public an intercepted dispatch 
from the German Foreign Secretary, Zimmermann, to the German 
Minister to Mexico, instructing him to propose an alliance with Mexico 
and Japan and war upon the United States, Mexico's reward to be the 
acquisition of the States of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 
other words the United States was to be dismembered. 

When, on April 2, 191 7, President Wilson appeared before Congress 

and in an address, which was a scathing arraignment of Germany before 

the; world, recommended a declaration of war against this 
M^3.r betw6cn 
Germany and "natural foe to liberty" he had a predestined and enthu- 

the United siastic response, for he was but expressing the wishes of the 

American people, who did not intend to have war made 

upon them indefinitely without their hitting back at the aggressor with 

all the force at their command, and who were resolved to share in the 

enterprise of saving the world from Prussian domination, or, in the words 

of the President, "to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the 

life of the world, as against selfish and autocratic power" and "to make 

the world safe for democracy." On April 6, Congress passed a resolution 

to the effect "that the state of war between the United States and the 

Imperial German Government which has thus been thrust upon the 



REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA 647 

United States is hereby formally declared," and it shortly proceeded to 
pass a series of important miUtary, financial, and economic measures 
designed to enable the country to play a worthy part in the great struggle. 
The United States did not declare war upon Austria-Hungary until 
December 7, nor did it then or later declare war upon Bulgaria and 
Turkey. With the two latter diplomatic relations only were broken. 

Thus a war, begun with incredible lightness of heart by Austria- 
Hungary and Germany upon the banks of the Danube, had expanded to 
include not only most of Europe, but Asia and Africa and now all of 
North America. Canada had been in the war since its beginning and 
had greatly distinguished herself on many fields. Now came the United 
States, unprepared, save for her navy, which at once began to prove its 
mettle and its value to our allies, but potentially an immense other states 
addition to the fighting ranks, should its enormous and ®^*®'' *^® ^" 
varied resources be developed and properly apphed. The entrance of 
the United States into the war was followed by the entrance of the 
republics of Cuba and Panama on the following day (April 7). In June, 
1 91 7, King Constantine of Greece was deposed and Greece joined the 
Allies July 2. Siam declared war on Germany July 22, Siberia on August 
4, China on August 14, Brazil on October 26, and in the same year several 
Central and South American states broke off diplomatic relations with 
Germany. 

Of more immediate and direct influence upon the course of the war 
than this intervention of the United States, which could only make 
itself greatly felt after a period of preparation, was a series of far-reaching 
and startling occurrences in another quarter. 

REVOLUTION IN RUSSL\ 

The most important event of 191 7 was the collapse of Russia and 
its withdrawal from the war. This meant an enormous increase of 
Gerrnany's power and at the same time imposed a new and mighty 
burden upon the Allies, a burden which threatened to be too great for 
them to bear. 

Russia had been badly defeated by Hindenburg in 191 5, and Bru- 
siloff's campaign of 1916, after important initial successes, had been 
brought to a standstill. The result of these events was to Overthrow 
arouse criticism of the government. The belief spread that °* *^® ^^" 
the old familiar "darkforces" were in control once more, that they were 



648 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

using the distresses of the nation for their individual advantage, that the 
court was pro-German, that the Czar "was meditating a separate peace 
with Germany. Charges of incompetence and dishonesty were made 
against certain officials. The leading members of the Duma demanded 
that a responsible ministry be created, a demand supported by the army 
and the people, and that radical changes be made in the government in 
the direction of greater efficiency, such as were being made in France and 
England. In February 100,000 workingmen went on strike in Petro- 
grad, and 25,000 in Moscow. An acute food crisis developed and law- 
less raids on bakeries occurred. When ordered to fire on the mobs some 
of the soldiers refused to do so, an ominous sign. On March 11 the Czar 
dissolved the Duma, wishing to get rid of it. But the Duma refused 
to dissolve. A revolution was in full swing. There was considerable 
street fighting, the police being the particular objects of popular wrath. 
Revolutionary bands captured some important buildings and seized 
the Prime Minister Golitzin, and a former Prime Minister Stiirmer, 
under suspicion as being involved in pro-German intrigues. The 
Duma now effected a coup d'etat, voting to establish a Provisional 
Government. The Czar was informed of this change and required to 
abdicate. This he did on March 15. Thus ended the reign of Nicho- 
las II, the last of the Romanoffs, a family which had ruled in Russia for 
three hundred years and more. 

The Provisional Government was a coalition representing the three 
different parties which had had most to do with bringing about this sur- 
Provisional prising change. Prince Lvoff, the head of the ministry, 
Government represented the business men and landowners of a liberal 
type, Paul Milyukoff, Minister of Foreign Affairs, long associated with 
Russian reform movements, represented the Constitutional Democratic 
party, and Kerensky represented the third group, namely the soldiers 
and workingmen. Kerensky was a Revolutionary Socialist, sympathetic 
with the popular demand for a juster division of the land in the interest 
of the agricultural masses. The ministry proceeded to give back to 
Finland her constitution, to promise self-government and unity to Poland, 
to endow the Jews with equal political, civil and military rights. On 
March 31 it abolished the death penalty. A general amnesty was pro- 
claimed and exiles in large numbers returned from Siberia and were 
greeted with frenzied enthusiasm. The public mood was optimistic and 
excited. 



REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA 



649 




EASTERN FRONT 

Aug. 1915 Dec. 1917 

Russian advance inio East Pr. 1914 

•• Gahcia 1915 

Scale in Miles 



650 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Revolutions once successful are difficult to arrest and have a way 
of passing rapidly through several stages, each more radical than its 
predecessor. The Russian Revolution formed no exception to this 
rule, but rather illustrated it afresh. The period of reasoned liberalism, 
of rational and ordered reform, did not last long. The Socialists entered 
aggressively upon the scene, drganizing Soviets or councils of workingmen 
Rise of the and soldiers. These Soviets, particularly the one in Petro- 
soviets grad, began to oppose the Provisional Government as much 

as they dared and to impose their views. In regard to the war the Lvoff 
ministry declared that free Russia did not aspire to dominate other 
countries or to get their territory but that it would not allow its own 
country to come out of the war weakened or humiliated. On May 2 it 
announced to the Allies that Russia would continue in the war until a 
complete victory was achieved. The Petrograd Council or Soviet, on 
the other hand, was in favor of a general peace to be secured by the 
workers of all lands, and asserted that the war had been begun and was 
being carried on in the interest of kings and capitalists. The Council was 
powerful as representing the capital and was striving hard to dominate 
the Provisional Government. On May 16 Milyukoff, the able Foreign 
Minister, was forced out of the Government on the ground that he was 
an imperialist, he having expressed the hope that Russia would acquire 
Constantinople. A Socialist was appointed in his place and Kerensky 
now became Minister of War. This reorganized ministry was against 
a separate peace. 

Kerensky soon became the dominant personality in the government. 
As Minister of War he endeavored to check the demoralization which 
was making serious inroads into the army. Discipline was disappearing, 
acts of disobedience, if not actual mutiny, were occurring at various 
points. Kerensky succeeded for a while in checking this alarming 
disorganization and even in arousing the army in Galicia to begin a new 
"drive" which made an advance of ten miles, only to be brought to a 
standstill by renewed mutinies, so that all that had been gained was 
lost (July, 1 91 7). 

On July 22 Kerensky became head of the Provisional Government 

and remained such until he and his colleagues were overthrown, on 

November 7, by the Bolsheviki of Petrograd. Kerensky 

TCfiretislry 

was a Socialist and was strongly opposed to a separate peace 
with Germany, but was in favor of a revision of peace terras by the Allies, 



THE BOLSHEVIKI 651 

in the direction of the formula, "no annexations, no indemnities." The 
breakdown of disciphne in the army continued to increase portentously. 
During the retreat in Galicia, generals found that they were obliged to 
discuss their orders with numerous committees of soldiers, and to secure 
their consent, before those orders could be executed. Officers were in 
some cases shot by their soldiers. Large numbers of troops retreated 
without making any resistance, so thoroughly pacifistic had they become 
as a result of the Socialistic propaganda carried on among them. Keren- 
sky pubUcly characterized these acts as shameful and labored incessantly 
and with extraordinary energy to stop the growing anarchy and to restore 
the army as a fighting force, necessary even for the defense of the country, 
for the country was again threatened. His efforts were unavaihng 
and conditions steadily grew worse. The Germans took the important 
city of Riga on September 2, with practically no opposition. The shame 
and impotence of a great state were being demonstrated every day anew. 

That shame and that impotence were illustrated in perfection by 
the policy and conduct of the new rulers of Russia, the Bolsheviki, 
who succeeded in overthrowing Kerensky on November 7, ^j^^ goishe- 
and in seizing the government, under the leadership of viM seize 
Lenine and Trotzky. Several of the ministers were arrested, ^°^^^ 
and army headquarters were captured. Kerensky managed to escape, 
and was not heard of again for several months, when he finally appeared 
in London. Lenine became Prime Minister and Trotzky Minister of 
Foreign Affairs. 

The new government announced its policy at once; an immediate 
democratic peace, the confiscation of all landed property, the recognition 
of the supreme authority of the Soviets or workingmen's or soldiers' 
councils, the election of a constitutional convention. The Bolsheviki 
revealed themselves adequately, though not completely, in these de- 
mands. They were extreme Socialists, resolved to effect a Socialistic 
revolution at once. They were unwilling to fight Germans or Austrians. 
They were willing to fight their own fellow-citizens for the purpose of 
robbing them of their property. They cared nothing about national 
honor. "Honor" was not a word in their vocabulary; it was only 
a conception of hypocritical capitalists interested solely in feathering 
their own nests and exploiting the downtrodden. The Bolsheviki 
cared nothing for the good faith of Russia, for they wished and intended 
to desert Russia's alUes and to make a separate peace with her enemies 



652 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

despite the fact that Russia had signed a treaty promising not to make 
a separate peace. Their moral standards were not above considering a 
treaty a scrap of paper, were not, therefore, superior to the standards of 
the Germans, in whose pay they were accused of being and probably 
were. As destroyers of a great nation, as artists in anarchy, as ruthless 
murderers of fellow-Russians, they were a great success. 

It was evident that with such men in power Russia's participation 
in the war was over and that the burden imposed upon the Western 
Allies would be far greater than ever. The Bolsheviki immediately 
started peace negotiations with the Germans, concluding with them an 
armistice at Brest-Litovsk (December 4) , where three months later they 
supinely signed what were probably the most disgraceful and disastrous 
treaties known in the history of any European nation. 

The Russian Revolution and the rise of the Bolsheviki brought about 
the rapid disintegration, not only of the Russian people, but of the Rus- 
Disinteera- ^^^^ State as a territorial entity. Finland declared its 
tion of independence. The Ukraine, an immense region in the 

"^^^^ south, did the same. Siberia later followed suit. The Ger- 

mans had control of Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Provinces and 
consequently declarations of independence were not in order there. 
General Kaledin, the leader of the Cossacks, declared war upon the 
Bolsheviki in the name of the safety of the country. None of Russia's 
Allies and none of the neutral states recognized the Bolsheviki as the 
lawful government of Russia. That honor was reserved for the Germans 
and Austrians and Turks. 

In December the Constituent Assembly, called by the Bolsheviki, 
met in Petrograd. Not proving satisfactory to the latter at its first 
session they sent a body of sailors into the chamber to disperse it. That 
ended the Constituent Assembly and gave a further illustration of the 
meaning of the Bolshevik formula about the self-determination of 
peoples. 

The revolution in Russia in its immediate effects and the inter- 
vention of the United States in its possible ultimate effects were 
the two most outstanding events in the history of 191 7. But, also, 
during that year military events of importance occurred. The eastern 
front saw comparatively little activity as, after the Russian Revolution, 
the Germans were content to watch the development of affairs in that 
country and in the main merely to guard the positions they had gained 



GERMAN "STRATEGICAL RETREAT" 653 

in Russia and Roumania, probably in the expectation of shortly imposing 
peace upon those countries and then being able to withdraw their troops 
from them and throw them with decisive force upon the western front. 

THE WAR IN 1917 

In the early months of 191 7 the effects of the Battle of the Somme 
of the previous year were shown to be more important than had been 
supposed, for when the English and the French renewed German re- 
their campaign in the same region they encountered a treat and 
weakened resistance, the enemy withdrawing before them. 
Then ensued, in March and April, a retreat of the Germans to the famous 
"Hindenburg Line," called by their leaders a "strategical retreat." 
The Germans retired along a hundred-mile front, from Arras to the 
neighborhood of Noyon, evacuating more than a thousand square miles 
of French territory which had formerly contained over three hundred 
towns and villages. But, compelled to abandon this territory, they 
committed deeds which added a new hideousness to- the name of German. 
They devastated the country as no country in Europe had ever been 
devastated before, and they did it with scientific thoroughness and 
wanton satisfaction. France recovered only a scene of indescribable 
desolation. Buildings, public and private, schools and churches, works 
of art, historical nionuments and priceless historical records were ruth- 
lessly destroyed; private homes were stripped clean of furniture which 
was carted away by the Germans, wells were filled with dung, orchards 
were cut down, roads and bridges and railways were blown up. If they 
must retire the Germans were resolved to leave a region, hitherto one 
of the most fertile in France, ruined and blasted for years and even for 
decades to come. An eye-witness wrote as follows: "With field glasses 
I could see far on either side of every road for miles and miles; every 
farm is burned, fields destroyed, every garden and every bush uprooted, 
every tree sawed off close to the bottom. It was a terrible sight and 
seemed almost worse than the destruction of men. Those thousands of 
trees prone upon the earth, their branches waving in the wind, seemed 
undergoing agonies before our eyes." 

Other events on the western front in 191 7 were: the Battle of Arras, 

fought bv the British, from April to June, and in the course „. ^., 

. ' ^ J ' Vimy Ridge 

of which the Canadians distinguished themselves at Vimy 

Ridge; the long-drawn-out Battle of the Aisne, fought by the French 



6S4 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

from April to November, famous for the fighting about the Chemin des 

Dames; the British offensive in Flanders, from July to December, which 

yielded Passchendaele Ridge and other positions; the Battle of Cambrai, 

in November and December, in which the Germans were compelled to 

retire several miles on a front of twenty miles. 

But while on the French front the Allies made considerable gains, in 

another region they sustained a serious reverse, in Italy. The Italians 

had seized Gorizia in iqi6 and in the summer of loiy they 

Italy invaded . . % 

carried on a very successful offensive along the Isonzo and 

the Carso Plateau. But with the breakdown of Russia and the spread of 

pacifism in the Russian armies the Germans were able to send large bodies 

of troops and a great quantity of heavy artillery to the aid of their ally, 

Austria. On October 28, 1917, the Austro-German army seized Gorizia; 

on the 30th Udine fell; a rapid retreat of the Italians followed to the 

Tagliamento. The Germans announced that they had captured 180,000 

prisoners and 1500 guns. The Tagliamento could not be held and the 

Italians were driven back to the Piave. For days the Allied 
The Piave 

world held its breath, fearing that what had happened to 

Servia in 191 5, to Roumania in 1916, was now in 191 7 to happen to Italy, 
and that she would be conquered and eliminated from the war. But the 
Piave held and the attempts of the Central Powers to outflank it in the 
mountains to the north of Venetia, along the Asiago Plateau and other 
ridges, failed. There the invasion was halted. French and English 
troops were rushed to the aid of Italy and their arrival greatly helped 
and encouraged the Italians. But the world had had a bad shock and 
was apprehensive still, lest the Italian line should be broken. The Ger- 
mans announced that the campaign had netted them 300,000 prisoners 
and nearly 3000 guns. Whether this was true or not, certain it was that 
they had freed Austria of the enemy and that they now themselves 
occupied four thousand square miles of Italian territory and that they 
were in a position to threaten the richest section of Italy, which contained, 
among other things, the great munition plants. 

The Allied gains on the western front and those in Asia, which will 
be referred to later, were but a slight comfort in view of the Russian 
and Italian disasters. The year ended in gloom in the Allied camp. 
But there was at least some satisfaction to be derived from the fact 
that Venice had not been taken, and that that matchless creation of art 
had not been destroyed by the barbarism of the enemy as had the 



THE ITALIAN FRONT 



65s 



incomparable cathedral of Rheims, the masterpiece of Gothic archi- 
tecture, the living embodiment of French history, whose every stone 
spoke of long lines of kings — and of Joan of Arc. 

The year 191 7, therefore, closed in gloom. The collapse of Russia, the 
disaster in Italy, were more alarming in their possible, if not probable, 
consequences than the scattered and costly gains of the AlUes on the 




Farthest Italian Advance. Austrian Invasion, October, igiy. 

Italian Front 



western front and the entrance of America into the war, perhaps too 
late to be of any material value. In Western Asia, it is true, the year 
brought some encouragement to the Allies, but how durable or significant 
the successes there would prove to be it was quite impossible to forecast. 
As the Germans had loudly proclaimed their intention to link Berlin 
with Bagdad, and erect a Middle Europe, and to extend it through 
Turkey and the great valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and as 
this meant nothing less than a pointed threat at the British Empire 
in India and Egypt, it was natural and inevitable that England should 
accept the German challenge in that part of the world as she had ac- 



656 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

cepted it in western Europe and on the high seas. Consequently as 
early as 191 5 an expedition had been sent out from India, under General 
Th English Townshend, to prevent the consummation of the German 
in Mesopo- plans. But the expedition failed disastrously. After hav- 
tamia -^^ advanced two hundred miles up the Tigris and after 

having seized the city of Kut-el-Amara, General Townshend found him- 
self besieged in that place by the Turks and after a few months, no relief 
having reached him, he was forced to surrender with his entire army, 
about ten thousand men, on April 28, 1916, after a siege of a hundred 
and forty-three days. Not only was this a serious reverse in itself, but 
it gravely injured Great Britain's prestige in the East. There was 
nothing for her to do but endeavor to repair the damage done. She at 
once organized another expedition on a larger scale and with more careful 
preparation, which she sent into Mesopot3.mia under General Maude, 
early in 191 7. This expedition was successful. Kut-el-Amara was 
recaptured on February 24 and on March 11 the British entered Bagdad 
in triumph. Bagdad was not of great strategic importance, but its 
capture exercised a decided moral effect throughout the world. 

Toward the close of the year the British achieved other victories over 
the Turks, farther west, in Palestine, During the earlier years of the 
Capture of war the Turks had seriously menaced England's control of 
Jerusalem ^]^g ^■^^Qz Canal and Egypt. The English resolved to elimi- 
nate this danger once for all by sending an army into Palestine, under 
General Allenby. This army gradually forced its way northward, 
captured Jaffa, the seaport of Jerusalem, in November, and entered 
Jerusalem itself in triumph on December 10, 191 7. Great was the 
rejoicing throughout the Christian world at this recovery of its sacred 
city after seven centuries of Mohammedan control. The achievement 
of the mediaeval Crusaders was being repeated. Would the new victory 
of the Christian over the Infidel prove ephemeral, as had the earlier one? 

The Germans were not downcast over the turn of events in these 
remote theaters of war. Nor had they any reason to be. On the whole 
they were holding the western front and the eastern front had disap- 
peared under the terrific blows they had delivered to Russia and which 
had laid her low. On the 2 2d of December the German Emperor was 
undoubtedly expressing the prevalent German opinion of the general 
situation when he said to the army in France: ''The year 191 7 with its 
great battles has proved that the German people has, in the Lord of 



FIGHTING IN PALESTINE 



657 




The "Middle Europe"' Scheme 



658 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Creation above, an unconditional and avowed ally on whom it can abso- 
lutely depend. ... If the enemy does not want peace, then we must 
bring peace to the world by battering in with the iron fist and shining 
sword the doors of those who will not have peace. . . . But our ene- 
mies still hope, with the assistance of new allies, to defeat you and then 
to destroy forever the world position won by Germany in hard endeavor. 
They will not succeed. Trusting in our righteous cause and in our 
strength, we face the year 191 8 with firm confidence and iron will. 
Therefore, forward with God to fresh deeds and fresh victories!" 

The first of the fresh victories were to be achieved on the diplomatic 
field and" were to be supremely satisfactory to the Germans. They 
consisted in the treaties of peace imposed by them upon Russia and 
Roumania, and upon the big fragments of former Russia which had 
declared their independence, rather than remain connected with a 
country controlled by the Bolsheviki, namely the Ukraine and Finland. 

The Bolsheviki demanded immediate peace and when they suc- 
ceeded in driving Kerensky from power, and themselves assumed con- 
The Bolshe- ^^°^' ^^^^ began negotiations to that end. They signed an 
viki and armistice at Brest-Litovsk, the German army headquarters, 

P®^'^® on December 15, 191 7. The leading personages in the 

ensuing discussions were Kiihlmann for Germany, Czernin for Austria- 
Hungary and Trotzky for Russia. The negotiations were long and 
frequently stormy. Trotzky urged that the peace be based upon the 
principles of "no annexations, no indemnities." The Central Powers 
pretended to accept this formula. Their insincerity and duplicity in 
announcing their adhesion to this principle and to that of the right of 
peoples to determine their own allegiance were shortly made apparent. 
They refused to withdraw their troops from the occupied parts of Russia 
and they indicated clearly that their aims were the opposite of their 
professions. At this Trotzky balked and withdrew from the conference 
and the Russian Government announced that it would not sign "an 
annexationist treaty" but at the same time it announced that the war 
was at an end and it ordered the complete demobilization of the Russian 
troops on all fronts. 

Germany, however, refused to accept this solution of "no war, but no 
Treaty of peace." It insisted on a treaty in black and white. As the 

Brest-Litovsk negotiations had been broken off by the departure of the 
Russian delegates on February 10, the German army immediately as- 



DISMEMBERMENT OF RUSSIA 659 

sumed the offensive and began a fresh mvasion of Russia, advancing on a 
front of five hundred miles and to within seventy miles of Petrograd. 
This speedily brought the Russians to terms and they signed on March 
3, 19 1 8, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the most notorious "annexationist 
treaty" on record. Its principal provisions were: Russia surrendered 
all claims to Poland, Lithuania, Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia; she 
also renounced all claims to Finland and the Ukraine and agreed to 
recognize their independence and to make peace with them; she sur- 
rendered Batum, Erivan and Kars in the Caucasus to Turkey, and she 
promised to cease all revolutionary propaganda in the ceded regions and 
in the countries of the Central Alliance. 

Subsequently and in direct violation of the plain intent of one of 
the articles of the treaty, the promise of a large money indemnity was 
exacted from Russia. 

By this treaty Russia lost an enormous territory, about half a million 
square miles, a territory more than twice as large as the German Em- 
pire. She lost a population of about 65,000,000, which was Djsmember- 
about that of the German Empire. A year or less of Bol- ment of 
shevism had sufficed to undo the work of all the Russian 
Emperors from Peter the Great to Nicholas II. So' complete a mutila- 
tion of a great country Europe had never seen. Russia was thrust 
back into the condition in which she had been in the seventeenth century 
and which even then was found intolerable. Never in modern times 
has a great power surrendered such vast territories by a single stroke 
of the pen. Pacifism and internationalism had borne their natural fruit 
with unexpected swiftness. Gorky, the Russian novelist, and con- 
sidered a radical until the Bolsheviki appeared and gave a new extension 
to that word, has estimated that this treaty robbed Russia of 37 per 
cent of her manufacturing industries, 75 per cent of her coal, and 73 
per cent of her iron. 

WTiat the future of the ceded territories should be was not indicated 
beyond the statement that "Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to 
decide the future fate of these territories by agreement with their popu- 
lation." A few weeks later the Central Powers dictated a pitiless treaty 
to Roumania, forcing large cessions of territory and minutely and in- 
geniously squeezing her of her economic resources for their advantage. 

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk laid bare the soul of modern Germany. 
It proved to all the world that, whatever her professions might be, 



66o 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 



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TREAnOFBREST-LITOVSK 

1918 

SHOWING TERRITORY SURRENDERED BY RUSSIA 



Scale of Miles 
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Kastamuni 
TURKEY IN ASIA 



TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK 66i 

her greed was unabashed and unrestrained. And this greed was char- 
acteristic not simply of her rulers, military and civil. All Germany 
applauded The same Reichstag which in July, 191 7, had voted in 
favor of the principle of "no annexations, no indemnities" now enthusi- 
astically ratified the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Sociahsts joining in. 
The rest of the world now knew, if it had not known before, what it 
might expect, if it was forced to pass under the same yoke. Germany 
stood completely unmasked. Her ideal was revealed in all its naked- 
ness. 

Having arranged matters in the east to her satisfaction, and no longer 
threatened or preoccupied in that quarter, Germany now turned practi- 
cally her entire attention to the western front, confident 
that, by concentrated energy of attack, she could at last and the 
conquer there and snatch the victory which had so long western 
eluded her and which would end the war. Transferring 
thither her large eastern armies she was confident that now she could 
compel a decision and could force a settlement to her taste. One more 
campaign in France and all would be well. The spring drive was to be 
begun early, the intention being to separate the French and English 
armies and then defeat each in turn swiftly — before the Americans 
should arrive in any such numbers as to be able to influence the course 
of events. 

THE WAR IN 1918 

The drive opened on March 21, 191 8. The mood in which it was 
begun was expressed by the Kaiser the day before: "The prize of vic- 
tory," said he, "must not and will not fail us. No soft peace, but one 
corresponding to Germany's interests." A month later the German 
financial secretary added an appendant to this Imperial thought when 
he said in the Reichstag on April 23: "We do not yet know the amount 
of the indemnity which we shall win." 

This great offensive, the greatest of the war, opened auspiciously and 
for three months proceeded according to the heart's desire. It was 
ushered in by the greatest gas attack Europe had ever The German 
known; also by a long-distance bombardment of Paris by d"v« °^ 1918 
a new gun of greater range than any previous gun had possessed. The 
ensuing attack was one of terrific force and was designed to spring the 
French and Enghsh armies apart at their point of juncture. The objec- 



662 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

tive was Amiens. As a matter of fact the English left was, in the next 
few days, driven back toward Arras and the English center driven 
beyond the Somme. This actually made an opening. The English 
front was broken and a great disaster might have easily resulted, for the 
Germans now tried to turn the Enghsh right by cavalry. They were, 
however, met and checked by French cavalry just in the nick of time. 
But between March 21 and March 28, the Germans made great progress. 
Town after town fell into their hands, Peronne, Bapaume, Ham, Albert, 
Noyon, Montdidier. It was at this critical moment that General 
Pershing placed all the forces under his command absolutely at the 
disposal of Marshal Foch to be used as he might see fit. Foch had, so 
great was the danger, the greatest since the Battle of the Marne, been 
appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, on the Western 
Front on March 28. At last the Allies had achieved unity of command. 

After -a slight pause the Germans attacked the English in the north, 
in Flanders at the point where their army and the Portuguese were 
joined. By April 12 the English had been forced to make a consider- 
able retreat. It was then that General Haig issued a special order to 
his men which would have discouraged and demoralized men less self- 
reliant and less fond of the blunt truth, however unpleasant. This 
utterance of the English commander will remain historic: 

"Three weeks ago to-day the enemy began his terrific attacks against 
us on a fifty-mile front. His objects are to separate us from the French, 
Hai'g's special to take the Channel ports, and to destroy the British Army. 
°^^^^ . . . Words fail me to express the admiration which I feel 

for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks of our army under the 
most trying circumstances. 

"Many among us are now tired. To those I would say that victory 
will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French Army 
is moving rapidly and in great force to our support. There is no other 
course open to us but to fight it out. 

"Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no 
retirement. With our backs to the wall, and beheving in the justice 
of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our 
homes and the freedom of mankind depend aUke upon the conduct of 
each one of us at this critical moment." 

The bitterest fighting continued and the British lost- important 
positions near Ypres, the famous Messines and Wytschaete ridges, and 



BELLEAU WOOD 663 

then Mount Kemmel. But French reinforcements came and the Ger- 
mans were checked. Ypres still held out. 

The Germans had suffered very severe losses in making these attacks 
and gains. They needed time to reorganize their exhausted divisions. 
Apparently, too, there was a change at this moment in their high com- 
mand, Ludendorff succeeding Hindenburg. Suddenly, on May 27, 
Ludendorff launched a new attack in an unexpected quarter on a forty- 
mile front, from Soissons to Rheims. On the 2gth Soissons fell. The 
Germans advanced rapidly. By May 31 they were at the ]\Iarne once 
more after four years. In four days they had taken 45,000 prisoners 
and an enormous amount of war material. They were held at Chateau- 
Thierry on June 2 by French reserves which were rushed to the scene. 
The Germans were within forty miles of Paris and had gained nearly a 
thousand scjuare miles of territory. 

The Americans were beginning to count. On June 2 the Marines 
captured Cantigny and two hundred and forty prisoners. Two days 
later they helped to check the Germans at Chateau-Thierry. Belleau 
They also foiled an attack in Neuilly Wood, advanced two- Wood 
thirds of a mile and took two hundred and seventy prisoners. On 
June 6 and 7 they advanced two miles on a front of six miles and seized 
Torchy and Bouresches. A little later they occupied Belleau Wood. 
These were details but useful and auspicious. 

On June 9 the Germans made an attack on a front of twenty 
miles from Montdidier to Noyon, pressing the French center back 
several miles but at great cost. Then came a lull. 

On July 1 5 they began their fifth and final drive in this remarkably 
successful campaign. Attacking on a sixty-mile front east and west of 
Rheims they pushed forward, crossed the Marne at several points and 
were evidently aiming at Chalons. They seized Chateau-Thierry. 

From March 21 to July 18, 191 8, the Germans had carried on a 
colossal offensive and had taken many prisoners, much territory and 
enormous booty. They were astride the rivers that lead down to Paris, 
itself not far away. Might not one or two more pushes give them the 
coveted capital of France and seal the doom of the Allied cause? 
Elated by four months of victories, which had brought them nearer 
and nearer the intended prey, inflamed by visions of imminent and 
unparalleled success, they were eager for the final spring. Then all 
would be over and a peace could be imposed upon the West similar to 



664 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

that imposed upon the East at Brest-Litovsk. The world would recog- 
nize its master, would be re-shaped according to HohenzoUern ideas, 
and would henceforth receive its marching orders from BerUn. 

Not many graver moments, if any, have ever occurred in history. 
The world stood gripped by an intensity of anxiety and apprehension. 
Was America painful, heart-sinking, intolerable. Particularly in America 
"too late"? (^i(j a great and desolating wave of dread and foreboding 
sweep over the public mind. Minutes seemed like hours and hours like 
weeks, so racking was the suspense. Had we arrived too late? We had 
been so slow in seeing our duty, in recognizing our responsibility in the 
desperate drama of our times, we had finally entered the war so unpre- 
pared, that it seemed only too likely that we were to pay, and that the 
world was to pay, a grievous price for our tardy perception and decision. 
And would that price include, for us, not only national insecurity, but 
national dishonor and disgrace? The answer to these questions hung 
upon events, and events thus far had not been reassuring, had, on the 
contrary, seemed to be converging toward disaster. 

We had done much in material ways for the common cause since 
our entrance into the war. Our navy, efficient and ready, had begun, 
from the first day, to render useful and important services. By the 
close of 191 7, we had less than 200,000 men in France. How many of 
these were prepared for front-line work it is impossible to say. But 
certainly they were far too few for the emergency. On March 27 
Lloyd-George, the British Prime Minister, made an urgent appeal for 
"American reinforcements in the shortest possible space of time" and 
declared that "we are at the crisis of the war, attacked by an immense 
superiority of German troops." The appeal was answered. From then 
on there was a rapid and increasing movement of American troops to 
Europe, 83,000 in March, 117,000 in April, 244,000 in May, 278,000 in 
June and by the end of July there .were 1,300,000 American soldiers in 
France. By November there were more than two million. 

So desperate was the situation in mid-summer 1918, that the French 
Government was prepared at any moment to leave Paris, as it had 
done in 1914. 

T, . But this moment was never to come. For Marshal 

hoch as- 
sumes the Foch now struck a blow which freed Paris from danger, 
offensive ^^^ which inaugurated a new and, as we now see, the final 

phase of the war. On July iS he assumed the offensive, attacking the 



SECOND BATTLE OF THE :MARNE 665 

enemy on the flank from Chateau-Thierry on the Marne to the river 
Aisne. With French and American troops he took the Germans by 
surprise, and achieved a brilhant success. His entire Hne advanced 
from four to six miles, reclaiming twenty villages. Thousands of pris- 
oners were taken, the Americans alone capturing over four thousand. 
A large number of guns were also seized. On the following days, the 
counter-offensive continued. Each day it achieved successes; each day 
it gained additional momentum. The AUied world passed through a 
new experience. An uninterrupted series of triumphs for the armies of 
ISIarshal Foch filled the days and then the weeks, after he had seized 
the initiative on July 18. 

By July 21 the Germans, threatened on the flank, were forced to 
withdraw the troops which had crossed the Marne. The Second Battle 
of the Marne was over and took its place in history, along- Second Battle 
side the First Battle of the Marne, having accomplished the °* ^^® Marne 
same deliverance of Paris and having begun the deliverance of France. 
In that battle Americans had taken an important part, although it 
should not be exaggerated. Seventy per cent of the troops participating 
in it were French. Forced to recross the Marne, the Germans next 
took their stand on the river Vesle. Bitter fighting occurred there. 
Again they were compelled to retreat and their next stand was at the 
Aisne. Week after week their backward movement continued, stub- 
bornly yet unsuccessfully contested. Foch's counter-offensive widened 
out far to the east of Rheims, far to the north of Soissons. Between the 
Argonne Forest and the river Meuse the main American army, entrusted 
with a formidable and difficult task, fought desperately day after day, 
pushing steadily but slowly and at great cost farther and farther north. 
West of the Argonne the French were driving the Germans back. 

At the same time, the French and the British, with contingents of 
the other Alhes, Italians, Belgians, Portuguese, Americans, interspersed, 
were attacking various points in the long line from Soissons to the English 
Channel. All these scattered attacks, carefully coordinated, were but 
parts of a comprehensive plan elaborated by Marshal Foch, Foch's great 
who was now reveahng himself to the world as the master- campaign 
intellect of the war. One does not know which to admire the more, the 
incomparable conception of this campaign or the marvelous execution. 
Unremitting pressure everywhere, damaging thrusts here and there, such 
was the evident pohcy, the purpose being to maintain in Allied hands 



666 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

the initiative and the offensive which had been seized on the fateful 
July 1 8. Without haste, without rest, all through August and Septem- 
ber and October the gigantic assault continued. The Allies steadily 
advanced as victors over ground which a short time before they had been 
compelled to abandon. . Verdun was freed from the German menace, 
so was Rheims, so was Ypres. It would be impossible in any brief 
space, or, indeed, at length, even to catalogue the long list of incidents 
and events, in themselves often of great importance and interest, in this 
vast and complicated movement. Many towns and villages, some of 
them in possession of the Germans since 1914, were recovered. All that 
the Germans had won in their drive from March 21 to July 18 was lost, 
and the Allies then pressed on to conquer the rest of the territory of 
France, held so long by the Germans, to smash their retreating lines, 
wherever established, and to hurl them out of France and out of 
Belgium. 

One detail of importance and of great interest to Americans in this 

general campaign was the elimination of the St. Mihiel 
St. Mihiel .. , T. , . , 

salient by Pershmg s troops on September 12-13. 

By the end of September, after paying a heavy price for their re- 
treat, the Germans were back on the famous Hindenburg Line, an 
intricate and powerful system of defenses which they had for years 
been building. Here they planned to hold, and then to institute an 
aggressive peace propaganda among the nations supposed to be tired 
of war. The only way to block this purpose was to smash the Hinden- 
burg Line and to compel the enemy to hurry on incessantly toward 
Germany. Could this be done? 

The Battle of the Hindenburg Line will perhaps rank in history as 
the decisive battle of the Great War, as momentous as the "Battle of 
Battle of the ^^^ Nations" at Leipsic in 1813, which foreshadowed the 
Hindenburg doom of the Napoleonic Empire. In each case the arrogant 
^® dream of world power was summarily dissipated. As, after 

Leipsic, France had been invaded, so, after the Battle of the Hindenburg 
Line, the invasion of Germany seemed possible and likely. Napoleon, 
in a few months, had been compelled to abdicate. Might history repeat 
itself, after an mterval of a hundred and five years? The climax of the 
four years' war was rapidly approaching. 

The battle opened on September 26, with attacks on the two widely 
separated flanks. On that day the first American Army under General 



BATTLE OF THE HINDENBURG LINE 667 

Liggett in conjunction with a French army under Gouraud moved 
against the Germans on the German left. The Americans fought be- 
tween the Argonne Forest and the Meuse and at first advanced swiftly, 
taking many villages. Gouraud on the other side of the Argonne pushed 
forward. The Franco-American drive was not halted but rendered 
slower when German reserves were rushed to the scene. 

Meanwhile Belgian and British troops had attacked the German 
right flank far to the north in Belgium and had been successful in driving 
a wedge between the Germans on the Belgian coast and those in the 
region of Lille. Again reserves were rushed by Ludendorff to meet 
this danger. But neither here in Flanders nor at the other extremity 
in the Argonne was the Allied pressure relaxed. 

Finally Foch was ready for his chief blow. On October 8 he at- 
tacked the enemy, anxious about both flanks, in the center. The 
attack was made between Cambrai and St. Quentin by three British 
armies under Byng, Rawlinson and Home, aided by the French under 
Debeney. Here the British achieved perhaps the greatest victory 
in their history. Hope, repeatedly deferred, was realized at last. In 
three days the British drove straight through the Hindenburg Line on • 
a front of twelve miles, and where it was strongest, and then pushed 
on into the open country. That boasted defense was no longer invin- 
cible. St. Quentin fell and so, shortly, did Cambrai. 

The consequences of this breaking of the Hindenburg Line were 
enormous. The British pushed on toward Valenciennes. Activity 
was redoubled along the two flanks and soon advances were Progress of 
made pretty much along the whole line from the English the Allies ^ 
Channel to Verdun. It was a wonderful cooperative movement with 
glory enough for all the Allies, and to spare. Laon, a tremendous strong- 
hold, was soon evacuated. By October 16 the Germans had had to give 
up the Belgian coast, Ostend, Zeebrugge. Then Lille, Roubaix and 
Turcoing were evacuated. In three weeks an amazing victory had been 
won over positions selected and long prepared by the Germans them- 
selves. The Americans pushed steadily down the Meuse. After October 
16 it was merely a question of time when the Germans would inevitably 
be driven back into their own country. Each subsequent day continued 
the tale of territory recovered, of towns captured, of a growing demorali- 
zation of the German army. The greatest battle of the war had been 
decisively won. It only remained to gather in the harvest. The 



668 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 



SURRENDER OF BULGARIA 669 

superiority of French military science over German military science 
was established, and the name of Marshal Foch took its place among 
the greatest names of military history. 

Meanwhile in other theaters of this far-flung war momentous events 
were occurring, contributing powerfully to the gathering culmination. 
From every front and with each new day came news of victories so 
astounding and so decisive and attended with consequences so imme- 
diate and far-reaching that it was evident that the hour of supreme 
triumph was rapidly approaching, that a terrible chapter in the history 
of humanity was drawing to a close. 

From Palestine came the news that Allenby, who had taken Jerusalem 
in December, 191 7, was on the go again. With an army of 125,000 men, 
among whom was a small French contingent, he carried out ;^enby>s 
a brilliant campaign against the Turks. Beginning in the Campaign in 
middle of September, and making a rapid and consummate ^^ ^°^ 
use of cavalry, he was able to get around them and in their rear, envelop- 
ing them, and delivering a staggering blow in the plains of Samaria. In 
the course of a few days Allenby captured 70,000 prisoners and 700 guns 
and practically all the supplies of the Turkish army. Following up this 
victory he pushed up to Damascus, which he entered on October i, 1918, 
taking 7000 prisoners. On October 6 a French squadron seized Beirut, 
the chief seaport of Syria. Then began a rapid drive toward Aleppo, 
the object being to cut the Bagdad railway and thus isolate the Turks 
who were fighting in Mesopotamia. On October 15 Homs, halfway 
between Damascus and Aleppo, fell, and also the port of Tripoli on the 
coast. A few days later Aleppo was taken. The fate of Mesopotamia, 
Syria, Palestine and Arabia was decided. Those regions, which for 
centuries had been under the blight of Turkish rule, were now freed. 
The Turkish Empire in that quarter of the world was a thing of the 
past. Also the dream of a German road from Berlin to Bagdad was now 
shattered. 

And while the Turkish Empire was being amputated in the East, 
it was being effectively isolated in the West. Bulgaria, which borders 
Turkey in Europe, was being eliminated from the war. Surrender of 
Almost at the very time that Allenby began his attack in Bulgaria 
Samaria, Franchet d'Esperey, a hero of the first Battle of the Marne, 
and now commander of the Allied army in the Balkans, an army con- 
sisting of French, British, Greek, Servian and Italian troops, attacked 



670 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

the Bulgarians between the Vardar and the Cerna rivers, and broke their 
Unes in two, rendering their position highly critical. Ten days later, on 
September 29, Bulgaria signed an armistice which meant nothing less 
than unconditional surrender. She agreed to evacuate all the Greek 
and Servian territory which she had occupied, to demobilize her army, 
to permit the Allied troops to use any strategic points in Bulgaria they 
might wish to, as well as all means of commimication. Bulgaria was 
thus out of the war. The Berlin-Bagdad dream was twice dead. Rail- 
road communication between Turkey and Germany was cut. The 
grandiose German plan of a Middle-Europe, of which the world had 
heard so much, was rapidly being shoved into the lumber-room of 
damaged and discarded gimcracks. Turkey was verging swiftly toward 
her fate. Servia was quickly reconquered by the Servians and for the 
Servians, and it could only be a question of a short time before Roumania 
would be able to rise again, and denounce the infamous Treaty of 
Bucharest which Germany and Austria-Hungary had imposed upon her 
less than five months before, on May 7, 1918, a treaty which had prac- 
tically robbed her of her independence, both economic and political. 

It was a matter of detail, though pleasing in itself, when on October 
3, the self-styled Czar of Bulgaria, Ferdinand, who had ruled for thirty- 
Revolution in one years, abdicated in favor of his son, Crown Prince Boris, 
Bulgaria twenty-four years of age. Ferdinand was the second of the 

Balkan kings to lose his throne as a result of his conduct in the world 
war, Constantine of Greece having preceded him into exile in June, 
191 7. The new King Boris was destined to rule one month only, when 
a popular revolution on November i overturned the throne and drove 
him from the land. The Czardom of Bulgaria became a republic. 

While such shattering events were occurring in the East, in the 
Balkans and in France, the war flamed up once more in Italy. It was 
in October, 191 7, that Italy had suffered her great and dangerous re- 
verse. It was then that she was thrown out of Austria, across the 
Isonzo and that she herself was invaded as far as the Piave. She had 
experienced colossal losses in men and in equipment. A year from that 
date, October, 1918, restored in morale and reinvigorated in every way, 
Italy assumed the offensive against the Austrians. Her attack was 
successful from the start and in the succeeding days grew portentously 
until she achieved an amazing triumph which largely effaced the 
memories of the previous year. The hostile line was broken and the 



ELIiVIINATION OF TURKEY AND AUSTRIA 671 

Austrians were compelled to withdraw pell-mell toward their own 
country. It was a rout and resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands 
of prisoners and thousands of big guns. 

I The atmosphere was clearing rapidly owing to these decisive events. 
Both Turkey and Austria were ready to quit the war. Both asked an 
armistice. On October 31 the Allied Powers granted an ^^^^ 
armistice to Turkey on terms that amounted to uncon- eliminated 
ditional surrender. The Dardanelles and the Bosporus ^°^ * ® ^" 
were to be freely opened to the Allies, who might also occupy the forts 
that protected them. Access to the Black Sea was thus guaranteed. 
The Turkish army was to be immediately demobilized. The Allies were 
to have the right to occupy any strategic points they might desire or 
need to. Other terms completed the defeat of Turkey and registered 
her exit from the war. 

The armistice granted Austria on November 4 contained similar 
conditions and also conditions even more severe. The Austro-Hun- 
garian armies must be demobilized and must relinquish to /i^^^tTi 
the Allies and the United States a large part of their equip- eliminated 
ment. Austria must evacuate all territories occupied since ^°^ * ® ^" 
the beginning of the war. Practically, too, she must give up the Tren- 
tino, Trieste, Istria and a part of the Dalmatian coast. All mihtary and 
railway equipment must be left where it was and be at the disposal of 
the Allies. All German troops must be evacuated from Austria within 
fifteen days. All Allied prisoners held by Austria must be immediately 
restored to the Alhes. A large part of the Austrian navy must be 
handed over. Several other provisions only emphasized in detail 
Austria's complete defeat. 

Meanwhile Austria-Hungary was in rapid process of disintegration. 
Every dispatch brought news of popular outbreaks from all parts of 
the Dual IVIonarchy. The Czecho-Slovaks declared their Disruption of 
independence, dethroned the monarch and proclaimed a Austria- 
republic. Hungary declared her independence and ap- "°g^y 
parently prepared to become a republic. It was rumored that Emperor 
Karl had fled, had abdicated, had been deposed. The truth was hard to 
discover, reports being so fragmentary and conflicting. Vienna evidently 
fell into the hands of the revolutionists and sociaUsts and the German 
sections of Austria were said to have likewise declared their independence. 
The ancient empire was breaking up and several new states were rapidly 



672 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

evolving. Nationalistic, democratic, and socialistic forces were strug- 
gling for recognition and control. What the ultimate outcome would 
be no man could tell. The very winds had been let loose. Whether the 
House of Hapsburg still existed was uncertain. That it was doomed to 
vanish completely and that, too, very soon, seemed assured, if, indeed 
it had not already vanished. No one knew what the next day or hour 
would bring forth in this maelstrom of fermentation, in this confusion 
worse confounded. 

The curtain was rapidly descending, the fifth act of the fearful 
tragedy of our times was closing with unexpected abruptness. Bul- 
garia, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary were out of the war. There re- 
mained the German Empire. Deserted by her Alhes, and herself 
being rapidly driven from France and Belgium, and with the invasion 
of her own country not only probable but actually impending, what 
would this arch-conspirator of the age, this "natural foe to liberty," 
at home and everywhere, what would she do, what could she do, in a 
world so strangely altered since Brest-Litovsk, since Chateau-Thierry? 
The handwriting on the wall was becoming larger and more legible and 
more terrifying. The evil days were drawing nigh for a dread account- 
ing. What could the proud and mighty German Empire do? 

What she did was to make a frantic effort for peace, appealing to 
President Wilson to bring about a peace conference, pretending to accept 
Germany the various terms he had indicated in his speeches of the 

seeks peace year as a proper basis for the new age, reforming her govern- 
ment rapidly in order to meet the more obvious criticisms which foreigners 
had made against it as autocratic and militaristic. The outcome of these 
maneuvers was the elaboration by the Allies and the United States at 
Versailles of the terms on which they would grant an armistice. These 
terms were to be communicated by Marshal Foch to such a delegation as 
the German government should send to receive them at a place to be 
indicated by the Generahssimo. On Friday morning, November 8, 
Marshal Foch received the German armistice delegation in a railroad car 
at Senlis, in France and read to them the terms agreed upon for a 
cessation of hostilities. They were allowed seventy-two hours in which 
to consult their superiors and in which to sign or reject the armistice. 
Revolution in Meanwhile revolution had begun in Germany. On 

Germany Thursday, November 7, mutiny broke out at Kiel. Several 

of the German warships were seized by the mutineers and the red flag 



ABDICATION OF WILLLUI II 673 

was hoisted over them. On that and succeeding days similar move- 
ments occurred in various cities and states, and revolutionary govern- 
ments, local or regional, generally headed by socialists, were announced 
from various localities, with what exactness we cannot tell, from Ham- 
burg, Bremen, Tilsit, Chemnitz, Stuttgart, Brunswick, Bavaria, finally 
from Berlin. Reports circulated like wild-fire that reigning princes were 
abdicating or being dethroned, that workmen's and soldiers' councils or 
Soviets were being formed in \'arious centers and were seizing power. 
Demands were being made that the Kaiser abdicate. There were all 
the phenomena of a breaking up of the great deep. German society 
was being torn by alarming dissensions, the practical unanimity of the 
past four years was pounding to pieces upon the jagged reefs of defeat, 
and defeat with discredit and dishonor. An hour of fearful retribution 
had struck. There was dismay and disarray in the public mind, vacilla- 
tion and poverty of counsel among the military and political leaders of 
the land. Moral bankruptcy, as well as material, stared the German 
nation in the face, that nation which had been a unit in war as long as 
war offered chances for aggrandizement and loot. Socialists, with the 
exception of a paltry few, had worked hand in glove with militarists and 
Pan-Germans and the assorted hosts of embattled adventurers and 
soldiers of fortune; they had done this for four years, the easy tools of 
autocracy and egregious militarism. But now this band of international 
plunderers was falling apart. Each was seeking safety as it might 
from the fast approaching storm. 

On Saturday, November g, a wireless message picked up by Paris 
and by London announced, to the stupefaction of the world, that the 
Emperor of Germany, William II, had abdicated, and that Abdication of 
his son, the Crown Prince Frederick William, had renounced William II 
his rights to the throne, that a sociahst, Ebert, had been made Chancellor, 
and that a German National Assembly would be speedily elected by 
universal suffrage and that that Assembly would ''settle finally the 
future form of government of the German nation and of those peoples 
which might be desirous of coming within the empire." 

On the following day, Sunday, the world heard that the revolution 
was still spreading, that Cologne cathedral was flying a red flag, that 
Hanover, Oldenberg, Magdeburg, Saxony and other towns and states 
were seething with rebellion. 

On Monday Americans awoke to the screeching of whistles and the 



674 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

din of bells which signified that the armistice terms had been accepted 
by the German government and that "the war was over," hostilities 
to cease at eleven o'clock that morning, Paris time. Rushing for their 
morning papers they ascertained this further fact that William II, 
Emperor of Germany, who for thirty years had been the most powerful 
monarch in the world, had fled for refuge in an automobile to Holland. 
Thus the Last of the Hohenzollerns made his sorry exit from the scene, 
having plunged the world into turmoil and tribulation indescribable, 
the memory of which would haunt mankind with nameless horror for 
decades to come, the heartless, crushing cost of which would afHict 
and sadden generations yet unborn. 
The evil that men do lives after them. 

REFERENCES 

The European War: Gibbons, The New Map of Europe, Chaps. XIX-XXI, 
pp. 368-412; Seymour, The Diplomatic Background of the War, 1870-1914; 
Schmitt, England and Germany; Bullard, Diplomacy of the Great War; Allen, The 
Great War; Davenport, History of the Great War; Beyens, Germany before the War 
(by the Belgian Minister at Berlin); Rohrbach, Germany's Isolation (Chicago, 
1915); Gauss, C, The German Emperor as Shown in his Public Utterances (1915); 
Billow, Bernhard von, Imperial Germany (1914); Headlam, J. W., History of 
Twelve Days, July 24-Augnst 4, 1914 (1915); Stowell, G. C, The Diplomacy of the 
War of 1914, Vol. I (1915); Chitwood, O. P., The Immediate Causes of the Great 
War; F. H. Simonds, The World War; P. Azan, The War of Positions and The 
Warfare of Today; D. W. Johnson, Topography and Strategy in the War. 

Of great value to teachers and students are: Harding, S. B., Topical Outline of 
the War; Dutcher, G. M., Selected Bibliography of the War. These and other usefu 
aids are to be found in McKinley, A. E., Collected Materials for the Study of the War. 



INDEX 



[In this printing the Index has not been revised to include pages 619-674 of the chapter on 
the European War.] 



Abd-el-Kader proclaims a Holy War, 
404-405. 

Abdul Hamid II (Turkey), 555-557. 594; 
deposed, 598. 

Abukir, Nelson destroys French fleet at, 
171; Napoleon destroys Turkish army 
at, 172. 

Abyssinia, Italy and, 412. 

Accident Insurance Laws, Germany 
{1884 and 1885), 371-372. 

Acre, 172. 

Acton, Lord, opinion of Frederick the 
Great, 13; on the Partition of Poland, 
•284. 

Adana, massacres in, 598-599. 

Adowa, battle of, 412. 

Adrianople, Treaty of, 543; troops sent 
from, 598; falls, 603; Turkey recovers, 
606. 

^gean Islands, Italy acquires, 414, 601, 
603. 

Afghanistan, England and, 490. 

Africa, England and, 252, 441, 464, 
474-475, 499-505, 507-509; German 
colonies in, 373-374; Partition of, 
374, 393, 471, 507-514; French pos- 
sessions in, 404-408; War in South, 
474, 476, 493, 497-504, 593; Spanish 
possessions in, 519; Portuguese pos- 
sessions in, 521. 

Agadir, Germany sends gunboat to, 408. 

Aiguillon, Duke d', 78. 

Alabama award, Gladstone and, 461. 

Albania, Young Turks and, 599, 601; 
Treaty of London {1913) and, 603- 
604, 609; Ser\aa desires, 604; dis- 
appears as a state, 606. 

Albert, of Saxe-Coburg, marries Queen 
Victoria, 444. 

Albert I (Belgiimi), 525. 

Alberta, 493. 

Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of 
Bulgaria, 550-551. 

Alexander I (Russia), concludes Peace 
of Tilsit, 211-212; meets Napoleon 
at Erfurt, 221-222; desires to break 
the Franco-Russian alliance, 233-234; 



Alexander I (Russia), continued 

enters Paris, 240; at the Congress of 
Vienna, 250; and the Holy Alliance, 
254-255; and Poland, 284-286, 558-. 
560; reign of, 558-561. 

Alexander II (Russia), and Bismarck, 375; 
reign of, 561-567; and the Edict of 
Emancipation, 562-563; adopts system 
of protection, 568. 

Alexander III (Russia), reign of, 567- 

569- 

Alexander I (Servia), 553. 

Alexandria, 1 70-1 71, 462. 

Alfieri, on Italian nationaUty, 8. 

Alfonso XII, King of Spain, 517-518. 

Alfonso XIII, 518-519. 

Algeciras, Conference of (ipo6), 408. 

Algeria, France and, 404-407, 507; Tiu:- 
key and, 507. 

Algiers, 404. 

Alliance. See Holy, Quadruple, Dual, 
Triple. 

Alma, battle of the, 544. 

Alsace, feudal dues in, 105, in; Ger- 
mans invade, 357; ceded to Germany, 
360, 369, 374, 384. Sec also Alsace- 
Lorraine. 

Alsace-Lorraine, Imperial Territory, 363. 
See also Alsace and Lorraine. 

Amadeo (of Savoy), King, of Spain, abdi- 
cates, 517. 

America, Seven Years' W^ar in, 3-4, 14; 
revolt of the English Colonies in, 6-7; 
as model for France, 86-88, 147; 
Spanish colonies in, revolt, 263, 268; 
Napoleon III and, 352; Irish emigrate 
to, 457; British North, 491-497, 505. 

Amiens, Peace of, 183, 192, 199. 

Anghcan Church, 432-433, 435; in 
Ireland, 455-457; schools under, 460, 
475; the Universities and, 460; the 
Conservatives and, 477; in Wales dis- 
established, 485. 

Anglo- Japanese Treaty {1902), 580. 

Annam, France and, 405-406. 

Anti-Corn Law League, 447. 

Arabi Pasha, 512. 



619 



620 



INDEX 



Arbitration, in the Alabama affair, 461; 
in labor disputes. New Zealand, 498; 
Permanent Court of, established at the 
Hague, 592. 

Archives, National (France), 150. 

Areola, battle of, 160. 

Argentina, Italian emigration to, 413. 

Arrondissements, 92. 

Artisans, in pre-revolutionary France, 47. 

Artois, Count of, and the Revolution, 
81, 97, 103; plots against Bonaparte, 
191; becomes Charles X, 272. See 
Charles X. 

Ashley, Lord, and child labor, 442. 

Asia, Seven Years' War in, 3, 14; Russia 
and, 18, 235,' 572-573; European as- 
pirations for, 393; French acquisitions 
in, 405-406, 572, 574; England and, 
464, 505, 572-573; Portuguese posses- 
sions in, 521; Dutch colonies in, 523; 
and the Far Eastern Question, 571; 
Turkey in, 594. 

Asia Minor, massacres in, 598. 

Asquith, Herbert, 476-477; and the 
House of Lords, 479-482; and Home 

Rule, 483-485. 
Assembly. See National, Constituent, 

a)id Legislative. 
Assignats, 94. 
Associations of Worship (France), 402- 

403- 
Athens, captured, 542; capital of Greece, 

554- 
Auckland, 497. 
Auerstadt, battle of, 210. 
Augereau, 157, 185. 
August 4, ijSg, 78-80; Louis XVI and 

the decrees of, 81. 
August 10, 1792, 114-116, 137, 147,^156. 
Aulard, on the Convention, 120; on 

Robespierre, 141. 
Ausgleich, 419, 426. 
Austerlitz, battle of, 202, 206, 207, 211, 

224, 246; results of, 203-208, 218, 223; 

anniversary of, 319. 
Australasia, 497, 505. 
Australia, commerce with, 462; English 

colonies in, 487, 493-497; Canada and, 

493; Commonwealth of, Constitution 

Act, 495-497, SOS- 
Australian ballot, introduced into Eng- 
land, 461. ' 
Austria, in 1789, i, 9-10; in the Seven 
Years' War, 4, 14-15; and Prussia, 
lo-ii, 13, 14-15, 29, 124; and Poland, 
17, 29, 164, 234, 250, 283; and Russia, 
25; and the emigres, 103; France at 



Austria, continued 

war with, 110-114, 124, 149, 152-165, 
182-183; Prussia aids, against France, 
113-114; and the Treaty of Campo 
Formio, 165, 183; joins coaUtion 
(second) against France, 173, 182; 
war against, in Italy and Germany, 
182-183; and the treaty of Lune- 
viUe, 183; joins England and Russia 
in coalition (third) against Napoleon, 
201-202, 215; signs Treaty of Press- 
burg, 202-203; not included in the 
Confederation of the Rhine, 213, 
228; and the Continental Blockade, 
217; begins war against France 
(iSog), 223-226, 229; makes Peace 
of Vienna, 224; becomes ally of Na- 
poleon, 228, 234; development of na- 
tionaUty in, 230; and the Grand 
Duchy of Warsaw, 234; joins Russia, 
Prussia, and England against Na- 
poleon, 238; and the Congress of 
Vienna, 242, 249-257; and the Water- 
loo Campaign, 244; acquisitions of, 
by Congress of Vienna, 252-253, 264- 
265; and the Holy Alliance, 255; and 
the Quadruple Alliance, 255; Met- 
ternich and, 255-257; after i8ij 
257-259, 261, 262; and Naples, 264- 
265; and the " right of intervention,'" 
266-269; Charles X goes to, 278 
and the revolutions in Italy, 280 
recognizes independence of Belgium 
282; and the revolution in Poland 
282-287; and the revolution in Italy 
287; and the revolution in Germany 
287; and the revolutions of iS 
298-311; and the problem of German 
unity, 307-311; must be driven out of 
Italy, 327, 332; Victor Emmanuel II 
and, 329; Cavour and, 330, 332; and 
the war of iSjp, 333-335, SS^SST, and 
reaction in Germany, 341; Bismarck 
and, 344-349; Prussia and, make war 
on Denmark, 346; friction between 
Prussia and, 346-349; and the year 

^=' 1S66, 351, 418; and the pohcy of pro- 
tection, 372; and Russia rivals in the 
Balkans, 374; and the Congress of 
Beriin, 375, 548-550; makes treaty 
with Germany, 1879, 375-376; and the 
Triple Alliance, 395, 412, 414; Italy 
covets possessions of, 414; Italy de- 
nounces treaty of alhance with, 414; to 
the compromise of 1867, 416-420; 
^oppresses her subjects, 416; fails in 
the Itahan war, 416; becomes a con- 



INDEX 



621 



Austria, continued 

stitutional state, 417; Hungary refuses 
to cooperate with, 417-418; and the 
Compromise of iSb^, 419-420; the 
Empire of, since i86y, 420-423; and 
the Ottoman Empire, 540; and the 
Treaty of San Stefano, 548; and the 
Congress of BerHn, 548-550; "occu- 
pies" Bosnia and Herzegovina, 548; 
and the insurrection of Poland {i86j), 
564; and Servia, 604, 608-612; and 
the European War, 608-618. 

Austria-Hungary, Italy declares war 
against, 415; since 1S48, 416-427; and 
the Compromise of iSdy, 419; oc- 
cupies Bosnia and Herzegovina, 426; 
annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, 595- 
596, 600; Servia and, 597, 604, 608- 
612; Italy and, 601; and the European 
War, 608-618. 

Austrian Netherlands, France in posses- 
sion of, 149, 152; Holland annexes, 
250, 252, 253, 282. See also Belgium. 

Austrian Succession, War of the, 14, 28. 

Austro-German Treaty {i8jq), 375-376. 

Austro-Prussian War {1S66), 347-349, 

353, 361. 
Azores, Portugal and, 521. 

Baden, 9, 202, 310, 347; joins Prussia 

against France, 357. 
Bailly, 73, 136. 
Baker, Sir Samuel, 50S. 
Balaklava, battle of, 544. 
Balfour, Arthur James, leader of the 

House of Commons, 473; and Queen 

Victoria, 474. 
Balkan, peninsula, events in {i 8/6-1 8/8), 

374; rise of the, states, 540-557; revolts 

in the, 545-552; Wars of ipi2 and 

1913, 590-606; and the European War, 

608-618. 
Ballot, secriet, demanded in Germany, 

369- 
Baltic provinces, 20, 558. 
Baluchistan, 490. 
Bank of France, founded, 190. 
Barbary States, 404-405. 
Barnave, 136. 
Barras, 148. 
Basel, Treaty of, 208. 
Bashi-Bazouks, 546. 
Bastille, 50; fall of, 76-78, 86, 96, 103, 

392. 
Batak, atrocities in, 546. 
Batavian Republic. See Holland. 
Baudin, 354. 



Bautzen, battle of, 238. 

Bavaria, electorate of, 9; Austria sends 
army into, 201; gains of, in South 
Germany, 202; becomes a kingdom, 
203; and the Confederation of the 
Rhine, 206; Napoleon fights Austrians 
in, 223; and the Congress of Vienna, 
249; supports Austria in 1866, 347; 
joins Prussia against France, 357; 
representation of, in Bundesrath, 363. 

Baylen, 220, 221. 

Bayonne, 218. 

Bazaine, shut up in Metz, 358. 

Beaconsfield, Lord. See DisraeU. 

Beauharnais, Eugene, 234. 

Beauharnais, Josepliine. See Josephine, 
Empress. 

Beaulieu, 159. 

Bebel, and Socialism, 369. 

Belgium, emigres in, 96; war in, 112, 
152; Austrian possessions in, ceded 
to France, 165; French conquest of, 
183; Code Napoleon put into force 
in, 190; England's jealousy of French 
conquest of, 199-200; Napoleon at- 
tacks the allies in, 244-247; annexed 
to Holland, 249-250, 252, 282; revo- 
lution of i8jo in, 269, 280, 287; de- 
clares its independence, 281-283, S22; 
and Congo Free State, 510; since 
1830, 523-525; neutrality of, broken 
by Germany, 525, 616-617; ^^nd China, 
574. See also Austrian Netherlands. 

Belgrade, 541. 

Bengal, 487, 489. 

Beresford, Lord, and Portugal, 519. 

Berg, 204. 

Berlin, war party in, 209; Napoleon 
issues decrees from, 210; University 
of, 230; Poles come to, 286; revolt in, 
301; becomes the center of interest, 
308,349,351; becomes the capital of 
the German Empire, 361; Congress of, 
374, 426, 548-550, 555 ; Treaty of, 375, 
548-550; representation of, in the 
Reichstag, 379, 381; German colonies 
ruled from, 505; Conference, 510; 
breaches of the Treaty of, 596-597. 

Berlin Decrees, 210, 215-216. 

Bern, 527, 529. 

Bernadotte, sent to Norway, 535. 

Berry, Duke of, murdered, 272, 276. 

Berthier, 169, 172. 

Bessarabia, Russia retains, 252. 

Bethmarin-Hollweg, Chancellor, 377, 
617. 

Birmingham, unrepresented, 432. 



622 



INDEX 



Bismarck, and the Prussian electoral 
system, 312; and the unification of 
Germany, 343-350; regards war with 
France as inevitable, 356; and the 
Hohenzollern candidacy, 356-357; and 
the Treaty of Frankfort, 360-361; as 
Chancellor, 365-366; and the Kultur- 
kampf, 367-368; and Socialism, 368- 
372; and thepoHcy of protection, 372- 
373; and the German colonies, 373-374; 
and the Triple AUiance, 374-376; pre- 
sides over Congress of Berlin, 374-375, 
548; WiUiam II and, 377-378; death 
of, 377; and democracy, 382. 

Black Sea, neutralized, 545. 

Blanc, Louis, 294-297, 313-316. 

"Bloody Sunday," Russia, 586. 

"Bloody Week," Paris, 386. 

Blucher, 244-246. 

Boer War, 474, 476, 497-504. 

Boers and English in South Africa, 499- 
505, 508. 

Bohemia, 257; revolution in, 301-302, 
416; conquered, 302, 304; invasion of, 
by Prussia, 348; and Austria, 420-422. 

Bombay, 488. 

Bonaparte, Caroline, 204. 

Bonaparte, Charles, 153. 

Bonaparte, Elise, 204. 

Bonaparte, Jerome, 153, 204-205; be- 
comes King of WestphaUa, 213, 228; 
flees from Westphalia, 239. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, becomes King of 
Naples, 203, 218; abdicates and be- 
comes King of Spain, 218, 228, 262, 
519; flees, 221. 

Bonaparte, Louis, becomes King of 
Holland, 204; refuses to enforce the 
Continental Blockade, 217; forced to 
abdicate, 217, 228; his son, 318. 

Bonaparte, Lucien, 174, 176-177, 204. 

Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, 317-320, 446. 
See also Napoleon III. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon. 

Bonaparte, Pauline, 204. 

Bonapartists, 290, 387-388. 

Bordeaux, Duke of, 276, 278, 290; seat 
of government at, 359, 384. 

Borneo, 523. 

Borodino, battle of, 235, 236. 

Boroughs, representation of, in Great 
Britain, 431-432, 436-441, 452, 465. 

Bosnia, Austria occupies, 375, 426, 548; 
Austria-Hungary annexes, 595-596, 
600, 609; Servia covets, 597; Arch- 
duke assassinated in, 609. 

Botany Bay, 494. 



Botha, Louis, 504. 

Boulanger, General, 394-396. 

Boule (Greece), 554-555- 

Boulogne, 200, 201, 318. 

Bourbon (Island), now Reunion, 404. 

Bourbons, banner of the, 78, 242, 388;' 
House of, in France, 81, 112; overthrow . 
of, in France, no, 218; monarchical 
party desires restoration of, 146, 188; 
centralization of government under, 
129, 182; England and the, 168; Na- 
poleon and the, 184-185, 187, 189; 
House of, ceases to rule in Naples, 203, 
218; House of, in Spain, 218-219, 516; 
restored in France, 241-242, 270-271; 
and the law against sacrilege, 273; 
final overthrow of, in France, 278, 
280. 

Bourgeoisie, in France, under Old Re- 
gime, 46-47; Louis Phihppe and, 278, 
289-294. 

Bourrienne, 169, 176. 

"Boxer" insurrections, 579. 

Braga, Dr. Theophile, President of Por- 
tugal, 521. 

Braganza, House of. See Portugal. 

Brandenburg. See Prussia. 

Brazil, 217, 519-520. 

Bremen, 217, 228, 365; merchants from, 
estabhsh trading stations in Africa, 

373- 
Breze, de, 74. 
Brienne, 153. 
Bright, John, and the Anti-Corn Law 

League, 447; and the Reform BUI of 

1867, 451. 
British Columbia, 492. 
British Constitution, the theory of the, 

436-437- 

British Empire, 487-506. See also 
England. 

British Isles. See England. 

British North America, 491-493; Act, 
492. 

Broglie, Duke of, ministry of, 391. 

Brougham, Lord, and the first Reform 
Bill, 436, 439. 

Brumaire, 137; the i8th and 19th of, 
174-177,204,319. 

Brunswick, Duke of, issues manifesto, 
113-114, 116, 240; Duke of, leads 
forces against France, 117; revolution 
in, 287. 

Brussels, riot in, 281; and the Interna- 
tional African Association, 509-510. 

Bryce's American Commonwealth, cen- 
sored in Russia, 570. 



INDEX 



623 



Bucharest, Treaty of, 605-606, 60S. 

Budapest, 303, 419, 421. 

Budget, in England, 26; of iQog, re- 

'' jected by the House of Lords, 478- 
480; passed by the Lords, 480. 

Bulgaria, the Turks and, 546; and the 
Treaty of San Stefano, 547; and the 
Treaty of BerUn, 548-550; after iS/8, 
550-552; and Macedonia, 547-548, 
552, 604-605; declares her independ- 
ence, 595-596, 600; Christians from 
Macedonia flee to, 599; and the Balkan 
War of igi2, 602-605; and Servda, 
604-606; attacks Greece and Servia, 
605-606; Roumania and Turkey join 
war against, 605-606; and the Treaty 
of Bucharest, 605-606. 

Billow, Prince von, Chancellor, 377, 
379-380, 382, 608. 

Bundesrath, 349, 363-364; Chancellor 
not responsible to, 365. 

Burke, Edmund, and the Partition of 
Poland, 283; and the French Revolu- 
tion, 428; and the House of Commons, 

437- 
Burma, 490, 572. 
Bute, voters in, 430. 
Buzot, no. 
Byron, Lord, and Greece, 542. 

Cabinet Goverrmient, development of, 

in England, 3-7. 
"Cadets," Russia, 587. 
Cadoudal, Georges, 191. 
Caen, 127. 
Cahiers, 69-70, 89. 
Cairo, French march to, 170, 172. 
Calendar, Julian, introduced into Russia, 

22; repubHcan, in France, 137-138; 

European, adopted in Japan, 576. 
Calonne, 67-68. 
Cambaceres, 180. 
Cambodia, Kingdom of, 405. 
Cambridge, University of, 432-433, 460; 

voters in, 443. 
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, pre- 
mier, 476. 
Campo Formio, Peace of, 165, 168, 183, 

199, 202, 205. 
Canada, acquired by England, 2, 4, 488, 

491-492; Dominion of, 492-493, 505; 

and the South African War, 493; and 

the European War, 493, 506. 
Canadian Pacific* Railway, 493. 
Cannes, 242, 244. 
Canning, and the Holy Alliance, 435; and 

the House of Commons, 437. 



Canton, trading port, 573; opened to 
British trade, 574. 

Cantons, in Switzerland, 527. 

Cape Colony, 252, 499. 

Cape of Good Hope, 462, 488. 

Cape Town, 504. 

Caprera, Garibaldi and, 336, 338. • 

Caprivi (Chancellor) iSgo-g4, 377. 

Carbonari, 265; in Paris, 276; Mazzini 
joins the, 325; in Italy, 326, 333. 

CarintMa, 224. 

Carlos I (Portugal), 521. 

Carlotta, Empress of Mexico, 353. 

Carlsbad Decrees, 262, 287. 

Carlstad, Treaty of, 538. 

Carlyle, and Queen Victoria, 443-444; 
and the Reform Bill of i86j, 452. 

"Carmen Sylva," 545-546. 

Carniola, 224, 422. 

Carnot, 132. 

Carnot, Sadi, chosen president, 394; 
assassinated, 395. 

Caroline Islands, 374. 

Carrier, 134, 137. 

Casimir-Perier, 395. 

Cassel, invaded, 347. 

Castelar, 518. 

Castelfidardo, 338. 

Castel Gondolfo, 410. 

Catherine II (Russia), 24-25, 27, 29, 283. 

Catholic Church (Greek), 18, 558, 599. 

CathoHc Church (Roman), position of 
the clergy of, upder the Old Regime, 
38-39, 41-43; under Louis XVI, 50, 70; 
Voltaire and, 50, 55; clergy of, in the 
States General, 72-73; attitude of 
clergy of, toward the National Assem- 
bly, 74; clergy of, renounce privileges, 
78; Constituent Assembly and, 93-94; 
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 95- 
96; and state separated, 149; the Bour- 
bons and, 187; Bonaparte and, 187-189, 
224, 232; position of, in Germany 
altered by Bonaparte, 206-208; clergy 
of, in Spain against Napoleon, 220; 
and the Bourbon restoration, 242, 271; 
and Belgium, 281; in Poland, 285; 
and the Kulturkampf, 366-368; and 
the Third French Republic, 391, 400- 
403; and the Kingdom of Italy, 409- 
410; position of, in Great Britain, 432, 
435; in Ireland, 455-456; schools of, in 
England, 460; in Lower Canada, 491; 
Spain and, 519; separation of, and 
State in Portugal, 521; in Belgium, 525. 

Catholic Emancipation Act {i82g), 435, 
456. 



624 



INDEX 



Cavaignac, Republican leader, 279; and 
the June Days, 316; candidate for the 
presidency, 318. 

Cavite, battle of, 519. 

Cavour, Count, 329-334; Garibaldi and, 
335, 338; and Rome, 339; death of, 
339; Lord Palmerston and, 339; and 
liberty, 340, 341; and Bismarck, 343; 
favors "free Church in a free State," 
410. 

Cawnpore, 490. 

Celebes, 523. 

Center, party in Germany, 367-368. 

Central America, 515, 519, 593. 

Ceylon, 183, 252, 488. 

Chamber of Deputies (France), 270, 272; 
conflict between Charles X and, 274; 
calls Louis Phihppe to the throne, 278, 
290; Paris returns Repubhcans to, 385; 
under the Third French RepubUc, 390- 
391; under the Kingdom of Italy, 409. 

Chamber of Deputies (Prussia), 380. 

Chamber of Peers (France), 270. 

Chamberlain, Joseph, Colonial Secre- 
tary, 473; urges tariff reform, 475; and 
South Africa, 502. 

Chambord, Count of, 387-389. 

Chancellor (German), powers of, 363, 
365. 

Charles, Archduke of Austria, 160-162, 
22,3-224. 

Charles I (x\ustria), 426. 

Charles I (Roumania), 545-546, 553. 

Charles IV (Spain), 218. 

Charles X (France), reign of, 273-276; 
flees to England, 276; goes to Austria, 
278; the Legitimists defend the rights 
of, 290. See also Artois, Count of. 

Charles Albert (Piedmont) defeated at 
Custozza, 302, 305; abdicates, 306; 
Constitutional Statute granted by, 311, 

329- 
Charles Felix (Piedmont), 267. 
Charter of 18 14 (French), 241-242. 
Charter {1826), Portugal, 520-521. 
Chartist agitation, 445-446. 
Chataldja, 603. 

Chateaux, war upon the, 78, 96. 
Chatham, Earl of. See Pitt. 
Chaumette, 137. 
Child labor, German Socialists demand 

prohibition of, 369; England and, 441- 

442, 448-449, 471- 
China, France takes Tonkin from, 406; 
commerce with, 462; Russia and, 572; 
Europe and, 573-574; and Japan, 577- 
580, 582-583; and Germany, 578-579; 



China, contimicd 
reform in, 583; proclaimed a RepubUc, 
583; and the First Peace Conference 
at the Hague, 591. 

Chino-Japanese War and its conse- 
quences, 577-580. 

Christian (King of Norway), 535. 

Christiania, 535, 538. 

Christina, Spanish Regent, 515-516. 

Church. See Catholic Church (Greek) 
and Catholic Church (Roman). 

Church of England. See Anglican 
Church. 

Cintra, 221. 

Cisalpine RepubHc, 165; becomes King- 
dom of Italy {180 j), 196. See Italy. 

Civil Code, 189-190. 

CivU Constitution of the Clergy. See 
Constitution. 

Civil Service (England), 460. 

Clement XIV (Pope) and the Jesuits, 
16. 

Clergy. See Catholic Church (Roman). 

Clericahsm, Gambetta and, 391, 401; 
Combes and, 401. 

Clericals (France), 392; and Boulanger, 
395; and Dreyfus, 399. 

Cobbett, William, 434. 

Cobden, Richard, and the Anti-Corn 
Law League, 447. 

Coburg, Leopold of, 282. 

Cochin-China, France and, 405. 

Code Napoleon, 189-190. 

Coercion, policy of (Ireland), 459, 467- 
468, 470- 

"Colonial preference," Chamberlain 
urges, 475. 

Colonial Society (German), 373. 

Colonies, German, 373-374, 378, 505; 
French, 393, 403-408, 505; Italian, 
412; English, 461-462, 473, 487-506, 
574; Spanish, 519; Portuguese, 521; 
Dutch, 523; Danish, 534; Japanese, 

577- 

Combes, and Clericalism, 401. 

Committee of General Security, created, 
124, 129; work of, 130, 145. 

Committee of Pubhc Safety, created, 
124, 129; work of, 129-134, 137, 139- 
140, 145. 

Commons, House of {1815), 429-432; 
Tory loss in, 436; reform of, 436-441; 
demand for further reform of, 444" 
446, 451-452; Liberals gain majority 
in, 453; Gladstone enters, 454; Irish 
representation in, 456, 467; Home 
Rulers hold the balance of power in, 



INDEX 



625 



Commons, continued 

467, 472, 480; Lord Salisbury gains 
immense majority in, 473; budget of, 
igog, passed, 479-480; and the Parlia- 
ment Bill, 481-482; Irish, 483; Do- 
minion, 492. 

Commune (Paris). See Paris. 

Compromise of 1867, 419-420, 421, 423; 
Francis Kossuth opposes, 425. 

"Conclusion" of March, 1S03, 206. 

Concordat, 1802, 187-189, 242; abro- 
gated, 402. 

Conde, Prince of. See Enghien, Duke d'. 

Condorcet, 136. 

Confederation of the Rhine (1806), for- 
mation of, 206-207, 213, 228; members 
of, desert Napoleon, 239; disappears, 

259- 

Congo Free State, 509-510, 525. 

Congress, of Vienna, 241-242, 244, 249- 
257, 264, 266, 280-281, 284, 335, 522, 
559; of Troppau, 267; of Laibach, 
267; of Verona, 267-268; of Paris 
{1836), 322, 332, 545; of Berlin, 374, 
426, 548-550, 555- 

Congresses, The, 249-269. 

Conserv'atives (England), 451, 453, 477- 
480; Gladstone and, 454; control under 
Lord Salisbury, 466, 470; defeat of, 
475-476. See also Tories. 

Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, 150. 

Constantine, Crown Prince, later King 
of Greece, enters Salonica, 602. 

Constantinople, seat of Orthodox Greek 
Church, 18; Russia covets, 25, 234, 
545; Napoleon's ambitions for, 172; 
Russians march toward, 543, 547; 
revolution in, 598; Turkey retains 
(igij), 603. 

Constituent Assembly, composition and 
character, 74, 86, loi; comes to Paris, 
84; and the making of the Constitu- 
tion, 86-98, 129, 231; and the German 
princes, 105; and the codification of 
the laws, 189; of 1848, 317-318. See 
National Assembly. 

Constitution, demand for, in France, 69, 
70; making of the, 86-98; of i^gi, 
89-93, 116, 127, 147, 263; CivO, of the 
Clergy, 95-96, 102; of lygs, 127-128, 
146; of 7795 (Year III), 146-147, 152; 
of the Year VIII (irgg), 180-181; of 
1812 (Spain), 263, 266, 267; in Prussia, 
301-302, 311; granted in Sardinia, 
311; of the Second Republic (France), 
3^3> S^S^Siy; Louis Napoleon and 
the, 319-320; of the new German Em- 



Constitution, continued 

pire, 363-366, 379-380; of the Third 
RepubHc (France, 1875), 388-391; 
Boulanger demands revision of, 395; of 
Italy, 409; Spanish {1876), 518; of 1848 
(Holland), 523; of 184S, Switzerland, 
529; granted to Demnark, 533; of 
Eidsvold, 534-537; of 1876 (Turkey), 
556; granted to Poland, 559; Nicholas 
II abrogates the Finnish, 570; granted 
to Japan, 577; promised in China, 583. 

Constitutional Charter, France, 241-242, 
270-272; Charles X disregards, 276; 
modified, 278, 291. 

Constitutional Democrats (Russia), 587. 

Constitutional Statute (Piedmont), 311. 

Consulate, 179-192; the Empire and, 
321. 

Consuls, 177, 179-180. Sec also Con- 
sulate. 

Continental System, 212, 215-217, 228- 
229, 232-234, 519. 

Convention, called in France, 116; work 
of, 120-150, 152, 186, 189, 215, 231, 
289; becomes prisoner of the Com- 
mune, 126; Bonaparte defends the, 
148-149, 156; Convention, Philadel- 
phia (Federal). See Philadelpliia Con- 
vention. 

Cook, Captain, voyages of, 494. 

Corday, Charlotte, 136. 

Cordelier Club, 105-107. 

Corn Law of 181 j, 433. 

Corn Laws, abohshed, 446-448, 457. 

Cornwall, representation of, in Parlia- 
ment, 430. 

Corsica, Bonaparte and, 153, 154-155, 
156, 173, 241. 

Cortes (Spain), 268, 516, 518. 

Corvee, 66. 

Council of Elders, 147-148, 174-177. 

Council of State (France), 181, 190. 

Council of States (Switzerland), 529. 

Council of the Empire (Russia), 587-588. 

CouncU of the Five Hundred, 147-148, 
174-177. 

Counter-revolutionaries, 81, 96, 109. 

Coup d'etat, of I7gg, 174-175, 177, 180; 
of 1851, 319-320, 322, 354. 

Courland, 20, 558. 

Court of Cassation, and the Dreyfus 
case, 399. 

Couthon, 145. 

Cracow, 252. 

Crete, Greece and, 555, 595-596, 603. 

Crimea, 25; war in the, 322, 332, 543- 
545- 



626 



INDEX 



Crispi, Francesco, 412. 

Croatia, 303, 420, 423. 

Croatians, in Hungar}^, 303, 423-425. 

Croker, and the second Reform Bill, 

438- 
Cromarty, voters in, 430. 
Cromer, Lord, 512. 
Cromwell, and Ireland, 455. 
Cuba, Spain and, 515, 518-519. 
Curasao, 523. 
Curia Romana, 410. 
Cushing, Caleb, and China, 574. 
Customary laws, 37. 
Custozza, 302, 305, 329, 348. 
Cyprus, England and, 548; Turkey and, 

595- 
Czechs, in Bohemia, 301-302, 420-422. 

Dahomey, 205. 

Dalmatia, handed over to Austria, 165; 

ceded to Napoleon, 202. 
Danton, as a monarchist, 98; as a leader, 
107; becomes head of the provisional 
executive council, 116; on the impor- 
tance of Paris, 121; and the Giron- 
dists, 121-122; as peacemaker, 126; 
dropped from Committee of PubHc 
Safety, 129; and the Revolutionary 
Tribunal, 130; and Robespierre, 139- 
141, 145; advocates moderation, 140; 
fall of, 141; on education, 150. 
Dantonists, 139. 
Danubian principaKties, 233. 
David, 142. 
Davout, 210. 

Deak, Francis, 298-299, 417-418, 425. 
December 2, 1851, 319-320, 354. 
Dego, 158. 
Delarey, 504. 
Delbriick, Professor, on the German 

Parliament, 382. 
Delcasse, Theophile, 406-407. 
Delegations (Austria-Hungary), 419. 
Delhi, seized, 490. 

Denmark, and the Continental System, 
217; and the Congress of Vienna, 249, 
253; war between Prussia and Austria 
and, 345-346, 353; and Africa, 507; 
since 1814, 533-534; cedes Norway to 
Sweden, 533. 
Departments of France, 92; Girondists 
and the, 121, 127; civil war in, 127, 
149; representatives on mission sent 
to, 130; government of, under the 
Consulate, 181; martial law proclaimed 
in, 320. 
Depretis, 412. 



Derby, Lord, ministry of, 451-452. 

Desaix, 169, 182. 

Deshima, 575. 

Desmoulins, Camille, 139. 

Devil's Island, Dreyfus deported to, 397, 
398. 

Dey of Algeria, 404. 

Diderot, 24, 52. 

Diet, German (Imperial), 9, 105; of the 
German Confederation, 259-260, 311; 
Hungarian, 299-300, 303, 416; Swiss, 
527-529; Swedish, 535. See also 
Bundesrath. 

Directory, composition of, 147; work 
of, 149, 152-177, 186, 189, 215; aboli- 
tion of, 177; and Switzerland, 527. 

Disestablishment of the Anglican Church 
in Ireland, 457; in Wales, 485. 

Disraeli, and the Reform Bill of 1867, 
451-452; ministry, 461-463, 500; and 
the Congress of Berhn, 548. 

Disruption of the Ottoman Empire and 
the Rise of the Balkan States, 540- 

557- 
Dissenters, in England, 432-433, 475. 
Dodecanese, Italy seizes the, 601. 
Don Carlos (Spain) claims throne, 515- 

517- 
Draga, Queen, murdered, 553. 
Dresden, battle of, 238, 250; King of 

Saxony retains, 252, Prussia occupies, 

347- 

Dreyfus Case, 396-400, 402. 

Dual Alliance, 375, 395-396, 612, 614. 

Dual Control, 51 1-5 12. 

Dual Monarchy. See Austria-Hungary. 

Dublin, Irish Parliament at, abolished', 
456, 466; bill to pro\dde Irish Parlia- 
ment at, 468. 

Ducos, becomes Consul, 177. 

Duma (Russia), 587-589. 

Dumouriez, 124. 

Dunwich, 431. 

Dupont, General, 220, 221. 

Durham, and reform, 436; mission to 
Canada, 491-492. 

East Africa, Italy and, 412. See also 
German East Africa. 

East India Company, 488, 490. 

East Indies, Dutch colonies in, 523. 

East Prussia, 380. 

Eastern Question, 25; reopening of, 463, 
546; defined, 540; Russia and, 543- 
545 ; Europe and the, 547-55°; new 
phase of, 555, 595; the European War 
and the, 613. 



INDEX 



627 



Eastern Roumelia, 548, 551. 

Edict of Emancipation (Russia), 561-563. 

Edinburgh, 278. 

Education, in Russia, 22; the Convention 
(France) and, 150; system of national 
(France) reorganized, 190; free and 
compulsory demanded in Germany, 369; 
national system of, created in France, 
393; State to control, in France, 401; 
problem of, in Italy, 411; in England 
neglected, 433; the factory system and, 
442; Forster Act of iSjo (England), 
459-460; made free in England, 471; 
Act of igo2 (England), 475, 477; in 
Portugal, 521; in Belgium, 524-525; 
in Switzerland, 528, 531; in Denmark, 
534; in Bulgaria, 552; in Greece, 555; 
in Japan, 576; in China, 583. 

Edward VII (England), accession of, 474; 
death of, 480-481. 

Egypt, Napoleon and, 168-173, 182-183, 
214; French compelled to evacuate, 
183; England promises to evacuate, 
183; and the Entente Cordiale, 407; 
England and, 462, 505, 507, 509, 511- 
514; "a Protected State," 514; aids 
Turkey against Greece, 543. 

Eidsvold, Constitution of, 534. 

Elba, Napoleon sent to, 241; his return 
from, 242, 243-244, 250. 

Elders, Council of. See Council of Elders. 

Elgin, Lord, 492. 

Elizabeth (Russia), and the Seven Years' 
War, 24. 

Emerson, on Napoleon, 194. 

Emigration, German, 310, 373; Italian, 
413-414; causes of, 487; to New Zea- 
land, 497. 

Emigres, intrigues of, 103, 109, iii, 
113, 122; many, guillotined, 134; laws 
against, relaxed, 186; Louis XVIII's 
policy toward, 242; Charles X and, 273. 

Emperor (German), powers- of, 363-366. 

Empire (France), 183; early years of, 194- 
214; at its height, 215-226; British, 
487-506. 

Empress Eugenie. See Eug6nie, Empress. 

Empress Josephine. See Josephine (Beau- 
harnais), Empress. 

Ems despatch, 357. 

Ena, Princess (Battenberg), marries Al- 
fonso XIII, 519. 

Enghien, Duke d', 191, 218. 

England, in i8th century, 1-7, 26; territo- 
rial gains of, by Peace of Paris, 2,4; 
evolution of the parliamentary system 
of government in, 2-7; colonial policy 



England, continued 

of, 3; in the Seven Years' War, 3-4, 14; 
and the American Revolution, 6-7; 
young Russians sent to, 20; Montes- 
quieu's opinion of the government of, 
53; Rousseau on the government of, 
57; influence of the government of, on 
French Constitution, 88, 90-91; at war 
with France, 124, 149, 152, 168, 171, 
173, 182-183; Napoleon and, 168-173, 
182-183, 19I) 199-200, 210, 213, 215- 
218, 221, 228-229, 232; makes Peace of 
Amiens with France, 183, 192, 199; 
French bishops in, 187; jealous . of 
French expansion, 199; issues Orders 
in Council, 216; and Portugal, 217, 233; 
and Spain, 221, 263; and the Congress 
of Vienna, 242, 250-252; and the 
Waterloo Campaign, 244-247; acquisi- 
tions of, by Congress of Vienna, 252; 
and the Quadruple Alliance, 255; and 
the Congress of Troppau, 267; and the 
doctrine of intervention, 268; Charles 
X flees to, 276-278; and the July Revo- 
lution, 280; recognizes independence of 
Belgium, 282; and the revolution in 
Poland, 286; Louis Philippe and, 289, 
296; Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and, 
318; and the Crimean War, 322, 332, 
544-545; ISIazzini and, 326; Cavour 
and, 329-330, 332; and the war of iSjQ 
in Italy, 334; Bismarck and, 343; and 
Mexico, 352; and Free Trade, 372; in 
Africa, 374; Germany the rival of, 378; 
WiUiam II and, 381; France adopts 
pariiamentary system of, 390; gains 
colonies from France, 403-404; fleet of, 
bombards Algiers, 404; and the Entente 
Cordiale, 406-408; from 1815-1868, 
428-452; Parhament of {i8ij), 429- 
432; position of the Anglican Church in, 
432-433; distress in, after 181 j, 433; 
reforms in, 435-443; and the Chartist 
Movement, 444-446; and the repeal of 
the Corn Laws, 446-448; and labor 
legislation, 448-449; and the Reform 
Bill of i86y, 451-452; becomes a de- 
mocracy, 452; since 1868, 453-485; and 
Ireland, 454-459; educational reform in, 
459-460; army, ci\al service and uni- 
versity reform in, 460-461; Disraeli 
ministry, 461-463; and Egypt, 462, 511- 
514; Second Gladstone Ministry, 464- 
466; and Home Rule, 466-469; the 
Second Salisbury Ministry, 470-471; 
Fourth Gladstone Ministry, 472; Third 
SaUsbury, 473-475; Old Age Pensions 



628 



INDEX 



England, continued 

Act in, 476; and the budget of iQog, 
478-480; and the Parliament Act, 48 1- 
483; and the Tliird Home Rule BiU, 
483-485; colonies of, 487-506, 507-509, 
511-514; and Portugal, 519, 521; and 
Greece, 542-543; and Turkey, 547; 
demands a revision of the Treaty of San 
Stefano, 547-550; and the Congress of 
Berhn, 548-550; "occupies" Cyprus, 
548; cedes the Ionian Islands to Greece, 
554; and Thessaly, 555; and the insur- 
rection of Poland {1863), 564; in Asia, 
572; andChina, 573-574, 578-579; and 
Japan, 580; and the breaches of the 
Treaty of Berhn, 596-597; and the 
European War, 61 1-6 18; and the Triple 
Entente, 614-615. 

Entente AUies, Italy joins, 415. 

EquaUty, the Revolution and, 51; Rous- 
seau and, 57; principle of, established, 
80; French found new system upon, 91; 
spread of ideas of, 112; the Consuls 
and, 177; Bonaparte and civil, 184-185, 
190, 196; Metternich and, 257; Consti- 
tutional Charter {1814) proclaims, of all 
Frenchmen, 270. 

Erfurt Interview, 221-222. 

Eritrea, 412. 

Essling, battle of, 223. 

Established Church (England), 432. See 
also Anglican Church. 

Esterhazy, Major, and the Dreyfus case, 

397- 

Esthonia, 20, 558. 

Eton College, Gladstone and, 453. 

Eugenie, Empress, 322. 

Europe, Old Regime in, 1-30; Seven 
Years' War in, 3, 14; emigres eager 
to embroil, with France, 96, 103; 
Treaty of Campo Formio changes the 
map of, 165; Russia and, 173-174; at 
peace, 183; ascendanc}^ of France in, 
196; coast of, blockaded, 200; Napo- 
leon alters diplomatic system of, 211; 
and the Continental Blockade, 216; 
effect of capitulation at Baylen upon, 
220; Napoleon seeks to dazzle, 221; 
Napoleon preeminent in, 228; Congress 
of Vienna determines future organiza- 
tion of, 241-242, 244, 249-257; Napo- 
leon the "disturber of the peace of," 
244; Russia extends into, 252; reaction 
in, after iSi$, 257-269; influence of 
the Revolution of 1830 in, 279; Cen- 
tral, in revolt, 298-312; states of, 
recognize the Second Empire (France), 



Europe, continued 

322; Cavour the most dynamic person- 
ahty in, 332; changes in the pohtical 
system of, 335; Prussia fears inter- 
vention of, 349; map of, altered by 
Prussia, 349; and the year 1866, 351; 
importance of France in, altered, 354; 
refuses to recognize the Treaty of San 
Stefano, 375; Triple AUiance dominates 
Central, 376, 412; and the Entente 
Cordiale, 406-408; Italy desires to be 
one of the great powers of, 412; expan- 
sion of, 487; increase of the popula- 
tion of, 487; Canada and, 493; Africa 
appropriated by, 509; and the Berhn 
Conference, 510; the Turkish Empire 
in, 540-557; Western, aids Greece, 542- 
543; Turkey admitted to the family of, 
545 ; pubUc opinion of, aroused against 
Turkey, 547; and the Treaty of San 
Stefano, 547; and the revolution in 
Turkey, 555-556; and Asia, 572; and 
China, 573-574, 583; and Japan, 577- 
582; an armed continent, 590; end of 
the Turkish Empire in, 594, 603; powers 
of, and Turkey, 595-597; reaction of 
the Balkan Wars upon, 606-618. 

European War {1914), 426, 608-618; Ire- 
land and, 485; Canada and, 493; and 
Imperial Federation, 506; Germany 
and, 525. 

Eylau, battle of, 211. 

"F's, three," 464. 

Factory Act {1833), 442. 

Factory system, in England, 433, 441 

Faidherbe, Governor of Senegal, 405. 

Falk Laws, 367-368. 

Far East, The, 572-583. 

Faroe Islands, 534. 

Fashoda incident, 407-408. 

Faure, FeUx, 395. 

Favre, Jules, and the Third Republic, 358. 

February Revolution (France), 317. 

Federal Act (German Confederation), 
260. 

Federal Convention (U. S.). See Phila- 
delphia Convention. 

Federal Council (Germany). See Bun- 
desrath. 

Federal Council (Switzerland), 529. 

Federal Tribunal (Switzerland), 529. 

Ferdinand I (Austria), poHcy of, 258- 
259; forced to abdicate, 304. 

Ferdinand (Saxe-Coburg) and Bulgaria, 
551-552; becomes Czar of Bulgaria, 
552, 596. 



INDEX 



629 



Ferdinand (later Ferdinand VII) of Spain, 
218-219, 262-263, 268; restored, 515. 

Ferdinand (Naples) and Austria, 264- 
265; grants constitution, 266. 

Ferry, Jules, and the Third Republic, 
358, 3Q2-394, 405. _ 

FeudaUsm, in Prussia, 10; in France, 
31, 37, 41, 47-48, 68, 70; abolished in 
France, 78, 80, 185, 233; in Alsace, 
105; Napoleon and, 184; in Spain, 222; 
in Russia, 233; in Austria, 258; abol- 
ished in Hungarj', 300. 

Fielden, and child labor, 442. 

Fife, voters in, 430. 

Figueras, 518. 

Finland, Alexander I and, 211, 217, 233, 
252, 534; and Sweden, 558; Nicholas 
II and, 570. 

First Consul. See Napoleon. 

Five Hundred, Council of the. See 
Council. 

Florence, revolution in, 305-306; capital 
of Italy, 409. 

Florida, 4. 

Fontainebleau, 241. 

Formosa, Island of, ceded to Japan, 577, 
582. 

Forster Education Act {iSjo), 459, 475. 

Fouquier-Tinville, 145. 

Fourteenth of July. See J\Ay 14, ijSg. 

Fox, and the American Revolution, 6; 
and the House of Commons, 437; 
colonial poUcy of, 492. 

France, the Old Regime in, i, 31-58; and 
the Seven Years' War, 4, 14-15, 488; 
and the American Revolution, 6-7; and 
the Jesuits, 16; aids Prussia against 
Austria, 29; effect of the Revolution in 
the Ufe of, 31; beginnings of the Revo- 
lution, 60-84; and the making of the 
Constitution, 86-98; government of, 
under the Constitution of 1791, 89-93; 
Civil Constitution of the Clergy of, 95- 
96; Legislative Assembly of, 101-119; 
and the emigres, 103, 109; declares war 
against Francis II of Austria, 110-112; 
becomes a democracy, 116, 147; Paris 
becomes dominant in the affairs of, 
116-117; under the Convention, 120- 
150; republic estabhshed in, 120; civil 
war in, 124, 127; dechristianLzation of, 
i37~i39; under the Directory, 152- 
177; and Corsica, 153; Savoy and Nice 
ceded to, 158; and the Treaty of 
Campo Formio, 165, 183; threatened 
with invasion, 172; under the Con- 
sulate, 17*9-192; and the Peace of 



France, continued 
.\miens, 183, 192, 199; Concordat de- 
termines relations of church and state 
in, 187-189; Code Napoleon, 189-190; 
Bank of, founded, 190; early years of 
the empire in, 194-214; becomes chief 
Adriatic power, 202; influence of, in 
South Germany, 208; the Empire at 
its height in, 215-226; annexes Hol- 
land and northern coasts of Germany, 
217, 228; and the Papal States, 217, 
228, 232; and Spain, 217-222; alliance 
of, and Russia renewed, 221, 223; and 
Austria, 223-226; gains of, by Peace 
of Vienna, 224; the decline and fall of 
Napoleon, 228-247; rupture of the 
Franco-Russian .\Uiance, 233-234; 
peace offered to, on the basis of the 
natural boundaries, 239-240; allies in- 
vade, 240; Louis XVIII proclaimed 
King of, 241; and the Congress of 
Vienna, 241-242, 249-255; policy of 
Louis XVIIL in, 241-242; Napoleon 
returns to, 242-244; the "Hundred 
Days," 244; and the Belgium cam- 
paign, 244-247; and the Congress of 
Troppau, 267; sends army into Spain, 
268; revolution of 1830 in, 269, 287; 
under the Restoration, 270-279; Rev- 
olutions beyond, 280-288; recognizes 
independence of Belgium, 282; and the 
revolution in Poland, 286; the reign 
of Louis Philippe, 289-297; the Sec- 
ond RepubHc in, 297, 313-320; Pro- 
Adsional Government in, 297, 313- 
316; Second Empire in, 313, 320-324; 
^lazzini in, 326; and the Crimean 
War, 332, 544-545; and the interv-iew 
at Plombieres, 332; and the war of 
i8§g, 333; Savoy and Nice ceded to, 
335; Bismarck ambassador to, 344; 
Prussia and, 345, 349, 355-361; and 
the year 1866, 351; the Second Em- 
pire and the Franco-Prussian War, 
351-361; and ISIexico, 352-354; and 
the Treaty of Frankfort, 360, 374; 
and the policy of protection, 372; iso- 
lation of, after the Treat}^ of Frank- 
fort, 374; and the Austro-German 
Treaty of 1879, 375-376; and the Dual 
AlHance, 376, 395-396; under the 
Third Republic, 384-408; and the 
Commune, 384-386; Versailles de- 
clared the capital of, 385; and the 
government of Thiers, 386-38S; army 
reform in, 387; Septennate established 
in, 389; and the Constitution of 187^, 



630 



INDEX 



France, continued 

390-391; and the Catholic Church, 391, 
400-403; national system of education 
established in, 393; colonial policy of, 
393, 600; General Boulanger and, 394- 
395; and the Dreyfus case, 396-400; 
Separation of Church and State in, 
403; acquisition of colonies by, 403- 
408; and the Entente Cordiale, 406- 
408; and Italy, 407, 412; and Africa, 
507-509; and Egypt, 511-512; aids 
Greece, 542-543; and the insurrection 
of Poland {1S63), 564; Russia borrows 
money from, 568; in Asia, 572; and 
China, 574, 578-579; and Japan, 578; 
and the breaches of the Treaty of 
Berlin, 596-597; and the European 
War, 608-618; and the Triple Entente, 
614-615. 

Francis I (Austria). See Francis II. 

Francis II (Holy Roman Empire), France 
declares war against, 110-112; retires 
from Vienna, 202; becomes Francis I 
(Austria), 207-208; daughter of, mar- 
ries Napoleon, 226; policy of, 258-259. 

Francis II (Naples), revolt against, 335, 
336; flees to Gaeta, 338. 

Francis Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, 
assassinated, 609-610. 

Francis Joseph I {iS4S-igi6), accession 
of, 304; and Hungary, 305, 416-418, 
425-426; grants constitution, 416-417; 
and the Compromise of iS6j, 419- 
420; and Bohemia, 420-422; death 
of, 426; annexes Bosnia and Herze- 
govina, 595-596. 

Franco-Prussian War {i8jo), 350, 357- 
361, 516; completes unification of 
Germany, 363; isolation of France 
after, 374, 395. 

Frankfort, Diet of, 259-260, 311; As- 
sembly meets at, 301; Parliament of, 
306-310^ work of Parliament of, re- 
jected, 341 ; Bismarck appointed Prus- 
sian delegate to the Diet in, 344; 
Prussia incorporates the free city of, 
349; the Bundesrath and the Diet of, 
364; Treaty of, 360, 374, 384. 

Frederick II (the Great), 11-17, 28, 29, 
209; and the Pragmatic Sanction, 29; 
Napoleon visits tomb of, 210. 

Frederick III (German Emperor), 366, 
376. 

Frederick VII (Denmark), 533. 

Frederick VIII (Denmark), 534. 

Frederick William I (Prussia), 11-12, 
283. 



Frederick WiUiam II, 17. 

Frederick WiUiam III, policy of, 208- 
210; enters Paris, 240; persecutes the 
Liberals, 262. 

Frederick William IV, rejects the work of 
the Frankfort Parliament, 308. 

Free Trade, 37, 65, 281; Germany aban- 
dons, 372; England and, 372, 446-448, 

475- 

French Congo, founded, 393, 405, 408. 

French Revolution, importance of, i, 38; 
England and, 7, 404, 428; a transition 
from feudalism to democracy, 31; be- 
ginnings of the, 60-84; Paris celebrates 
the end of, loi; political clubs and, 
108; and the war in Europe, 110, 112; 
and the September Massacres, 117- 
118; and the Convention, 120-150; 
Louis XVI and, 122-124; and the 
Constitution of 1793, 127-128; Ro- 
bespierre and, 142; and the insur- 
rection of 13 Vendemiaire, 148-149; 
Napoleon and, 155-156; 183-185, 
196, 244; and the treaty of Campo 
Formio, 165; Roman CathoHc bishops 
and the laws of the, 187-188; and , 
legislation, 189-190; Stein imitates ' 
the reforms of the, 231; Congress of 
Vienna and, 254; Metternich and, 
256-257; Italy and, 264; the restored 
Bourbons and, 270-272, 274; of 1830, 
276-279, 280; Belgium and, 281-283; 
Poland and, 284; of 1S4S, 296, 298, 
445; widespread influence of, 428, 

541- 
French Soudan, 406. 
Friedland, battle of, 211. 
Fundamental Law of 1815 (Holland), 

522. 

Gabelle, 39-40. 

Gaeta, 338. 

Gag Laws, 434. 

Galicia, 224, 422. 

Gambetta, Leon, emergence of, 354-355; 
proclaims the RepubHc, 358; escapes 
from Paris, 359; wishes to continue 
the war, 384; and Clericahsm, 391, 
401; president of the Chamber of 
Deputies, 392; death of, 394; Waldeck- 
Rousseau and, 400. 

Gapon, Father, 586. 

Garibaldi, Anita, 336. 

Garibaldi, Giuseppe, joins "Young 
Italy," 327; and the making of the 
Kingdom of Italy, 335-338- 

Gatton, 431. 



INDEX 



631 



Gaza, 172. 

General Security. See Committee of 
General Security. 

"Generalities," 36. 

Geneva Commission, 461. 

Genoa, in lySg, i, 8, 26; and Corsica, 
153; becomes the Ligurian Repub- 
lic, 162; and Napoleon, 166, Massena 
driven into, 182; given to the King 
of Piedmont, 249, 253, 264; Mazzini 
born in, 325; Garibaldi and, 337. 

George, Lloyd, Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, and the budget of ipop, 478. 

George I (England), 2-3. 

George I (Greece), 554-555- 

George II (England), 2-4. 

George ^11 (England), reign of, 4-7; 
death of, 435; and New South Wales, 
494. 

George IV (England), accession of, 435; 
death of, 436. 

George V (England), accession of, 481; 
and the Parhament Bill, 482. 

German Confederation, established, 259- 
262, 307-308; revived, 311; restored, 
341; Holstein a member of the, 346; 
ceases to exist, 349. See also Ger- 
many. 

German East Africa, 374. 

German Empire. See Holy Roman 
Empire. 

German National Assembly, 301. 

German Southwest Africa, 374. 

Germans, the dominant race in Austria, 
257, 302, 420-423. 

Germany, in lySg, 9-10; Frederick II 
and, 11-17; influence of, in Russia, 
21-22; emigres in, 96, 103; states of, 
at war with France, 105, 124, 152; 
France in possession of provinces west 
of the Rhine, 149, 199, 205; campaign 
through southern, 153; congress of 
states of, 165; French driven out of, 
174; French defeat Austrians in, 183; 
French bishops in, 187; Code Napoleon 
put into force in states of, 190; Na- 
poleon seizes Hanover, 200; Napoleon 
sends Grand Army across, 201; Bavaria 
and Baden gain possessions in South, 
202; transformation of, by Napoleon, 
205-208, 211, 213; northern coasts of, 
annexed to France, 217, 228; kings and 
princes of, summoned to Erfurt, 221; 
troops from, sent to aid Napoleon, 
224; and the Continental System, 234; 
Napoleon_ battles for supremacy in, 
237-239; "Prussia to have compensa- 



Germany, continued 

tion in northern, 238; Saxony and, 
250; Metternich and, 255, 257; after 
i8ij, 259-262; and the July Revolu- 
tion, 280; and the revolution in Po- 
land, 286; revolution in, 287-288, 301-- 
302; problem of unity in, 307-312; 
emigration of Liberals from, 310; uni- 
fication of, 341-350; reaction in, after 
184^, 341; Prussia conquers North, 
347-348; states of South, 349; Con- 
federation of North, 349-350; war with 
France necessary for the unification of, 
356; states of South, aid Prussia, 357; 
Napoleon III a prisoner in, 358; and 
the Treaty of Frankfort, 360, 384; com- 
pletion of unification of, 360-361; the 
Bundesrath and, 364; the parUamen- 
tary sj^stem does not exist in, 366; and 
the Kulturkampf, 366-368; the Center 
party in, 367; and Sociahsm, 368- 
372; Bismarck adopts policy of protec- 
tion in, 372-373; acquires colonies, 
373-374; and the Triple Alliance, 374- 
376, 395, 412, 414; makes treaty with 
Austria, 375-376; the reign of WiUiam 
II, 376-382; expansion of industry in, 
378; the Social Democrats in, 378- 
380; Prussia rules, 379-380; demand 
for parliamentary reform in, 380-381; 
and Great Britain, 381; France pays 
indemnity to, 387; France feels the 
rivalr>^ of, 393; and the Dreyfus Case, 
396; and the Entente Cordiale, 407- 
408; loss of Austrian influence in, 416, 
418; principle of nationaUty effective 
in, 420; and Africa, 509; violates Bel- 
gian neutrahty, 525, 616; aids Greece, 
542; and Japan, 578-579; and China, 
578-579; and the breaches of the 
Treaty of Berlin, 596-597; and the 
European War, 608-618. 

Giohtti, and Austria, 608. 

Gironde, no. 

Girondists, personnel, iio-iii; desire 
war, in; and tlie Jacobins, no, in, 
118, 120-126; and the trial of Louis 
XVI, 123; leaders of, expelled from 
the Convention, 126, 129, 133, 137; 
call the departments to arms, 127; 
Lyons and, 133; twenty-one, guillotined, 
134; offices open to, 186. 

Gladstone, and reform of the House of 
Commons, 451; and the Great Minis- 
try, 453-461; early life, 453-454; and 
Ireland, 454-459; and education, 459- 
460; other reforms of, 460-461; second 



6^2 



INDEX 



Gladstone, continued 

ministrj^ of, 463-466; third ministry, 
467-470; fourth ministry,- 47 2; resigns, 
472-473; and the House of Lords, 472, 
480; and the Transvaal, 500-501; and 
the Soudan, 513; denounces "the im- 
speakable Turk," 546-547. 

Godoy, 218. 

Goethe, 222, 261. 

Gordon, General, 513-514. 

Gorgei, 305. 

Gortchakoff (Russian Chancellor) and 
the Congress of Berhn, 375. 

Gotha, SociaUst platform adopted at, 

369- 

"Governments," France, 35-36. 

Gramont, and the HohenzoUern candi- 
dacy, 356-357- 

Grattan, 467. 

Great Commoner. See Pitt. 

Great Elector (Prussia), 11. 

Great Khan, 18. 

Great Saint Bernard pass, 182, 201. 

"Great Terror," 137, 145. 

Great Trek, 499. 

Greece, and the war of independence, 
541-543; foreign intervention in, 542- 
543; becomes a kingdom, 543, 545, 
554_; after 1833, 554-555; acquires the 
Ionian Islands and Thessaly, 554-555; 
declares war against Turkej-, 555; and 
the Young Turks, 599; and the Bal- 
kan War of igi2, 602-605; Bulgaria 
attacks, 605; and the Treaty of 
Bucharest, 605-606. 

Greenland, 534. 

Green's History of England, censored in 
Russia, 570. 

Grenoble, 243. 

Gre%-^", Jules, chosen President, 392; 
resigns, 394. 

Grey, Earl, becomes prime minister, 436; 
ministry of, defeated, 437; ministry 
of, resigns, 439; recalled, 439. 

Grey, Sir Edward, and the breaches of 
the Treaty of Berlin, 597. 

Guadaloupe, 404. 

Guam, 374. 

GuastaUa, 204. 

Guiana, South America, 404, 488; Dutch, 

523- 
Guilds, in France, 47; aboUshed, 65-66, 

80, 185. 
Guinea, 405. 
Guizot, Ministry of (1840-1848), 292- 

296. 
Gustavus V (Sweden), 538. 



Haakon \TI (Non\-ay), 538. 

Habeas Corpus, 50; suspended, 434. 

Hague, First Peace Conference at, 591- 
593; Second, 593-594- 

Hague International Arbitration Tri- 
bunal, 538, 592; Ser\'ia and, 611. 

HaUam, Arthur, 453-454. 

Ham, 318. 

Hamburg, 217, 228, 365; merchants of, 
found trading stations in Africa, 373. 

Hanover, House of, 2; Napoleon seizes, 
200; supports Austria in 1866, 347; 
Prussia invades, 347; King of, taken 
prisoner, 348; Kingdom of, incor- 
porated in Prussia, 349. 

Hapsburg, House of. See .Austria. 

Harbin, 579. 

Hardenburg, 230. * 

Hebert, and the Pcre Duchesne, 137; 
guillotined, 140. 

Hebertists, 139; and the Committee of 
PubUc Safety, 140. 

Helgoland, 252, 488. 

Henry, Colonel, 397. 

"Henry V" (France), 388. 

Herzego\ana, Austria occupies, 375, 426, 
548; insurrection in, 546; Austria-Hun- 
garjf annexes, 595-596, 600; Servia 
covets, 597. 

Hesse-Cassel, revolution in, 287; sup- 
ports Austria in 1866, 347; Elector of, 
taken prisoner, 348; Prussia incor- 
porates the duchy of, 349. 

Hesse-Darmstadt, supports Austria in 
1S66, 347. 

Hindus, and the Sepoy Mutiny, 489-490. 

Hohenlinden, battle of, 183. 

Hohenlohe (Chancellor, iSp4-igoo), 377. 

HohenzoUern, House of. ' See Prussia. 

HohenzoUern candidacj^, 356-357. 

Holland, in i/8g, 1 ; young Russians sent 
to, 20; at war with France, 124, 149; 
makes peace with France, 149, 152; 
loses colonies, 183; colonies of, re- 
stored, 183; Louis Bonaparte becomes 
king of, 203; and the Continental 
Blockade, 217; annexed to France, 217, 
228; Belgium aimexed to, 250, 252, 
281; colonial losses of, 252, 488, 499; 
and Africa, 507; since 1830, 522-523; 
and China, 574. 

Holstein, Denmark and, 345-346, 533; 
Prussia incorporates, 349, 533. 

Holy AUiance, 254-255; and Spain, 263, 
268, 515; a synonym for t\Tanny, 267; 
becomes dominant force in European 
poUtics, 268-269; powerlessness of, 



INDEX 



^33 



Holy Alliance, continued 

280; the Poles and, 287; Canning and, 

435- 
"Holy Allies," 255, 266, 268. 
Holy Roman Empire, in 178Q, i, 9; 

comes to an end, 206-207, 259. See 

also Germany. 
Holyrood Palace, 278. 
Home Rule Bill (Ireland), first, 466-469; 

second, 472; third, 483-485. 
Home Rule Movement, 466-470, 472- 

473, 483-485- 

Hong Kong, ceded to England, 574. 

Hudson Bay territorj^ 487, 491-493. 

Humbert I (Italy), accession of, 410; 
assassinated, 413. 

"Hundre(4Days," 244. 

Hungary, Kingdom of, 257; and the re- 
volution of 1848, 298-305, 416; Diet 
of, aboUshed, 416; refuses to cooperate 
with Austria, 417-418; and the Com- 
promise of 186/, 419-420, 423; the 
Kingdom of, since 186/, 423-426. See 
also Austria-Hungar3\ 

Huskisson, and the tariff, 435. 

Ibrahim, 542. 

Iceland, 534. _ 

Illyrian Pro\-inces, 224, 252. 

Imperial Federation (British), 505-506. 

"Imperial Germany" by von Billow, 
382._ 

Imperial Parliament (German) and the 
King of Prussia, 366; and the Kultur- 
kampf, 367-368; and SociaUsm, 370; 
and the pohcy of protection, 372-373. 

Imperialism, era of, begins, 393; Eng- 
land and, 461-462, 470, 473, 476. 

ImperiaUsts (France) and Boulanger, 395. 

Income tax, demanded by SociaHsts, 369; 
England and, 478. 

Indemnity, Act of (England), 432. 

India, acc^uired by England, 2, 4, 487- 
490, 572; French designs on, 7; Na- 
poleon and, 168-169, 172; Wellesley 
and, 221; French towns on coast of, 
404; commerce with, 462; Queen of 
England proclaimed Empress of, 463, 
490; declared an Empire, 490; govern- 
ment of, 490, 505. 

Indo-China, French acquisitions in, 405, 
572. _ 

Industrial Revolution, in England, 2. 

Initiative (Switzerland), 530-531. 

Inkermann, battle of, 544. 

Inquisition, in Spain, 222; in Italy, 265. 

Institute, 150. 



Insurance, against sickness, accident, old 
age and incapacity in Germany, 371. 

Intendants, under the Old Regime, 36, 
92, 182. 

International African Association, 509. 

InvaUdes, 247. 

Ionian Islands, 252, 488; ceded to 
Greece, 554. 

Ireland, representation of, in the Eng- 
lish ParUament, 430; famine of 184^ 
in, 447-448; Gladstone and, 454-459, 
464-465, 467-470, 472; and Home 
Rule, 466-469, 472, ti.83-485; Lord 
Salisbury and, 470-471, 473; old age 
pensions in, 476. 

Irish Government Bill (Gladstone's), 468. 

Irish Home Rulers, support the Liberals, 
467, 472, 480. 

Isabella II, Queen (Spain), driven out, 
356, 516; reign of, 515-516; her son 
becomes king, 518. 

Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 462, 51 1-5 12. 

Isnard, no. 

Istria, handed over to Austria, 165; 
ceded to Napoleon, 202; Italy covets, 
414. _ 

Italia irredenta, 414. 

Italy, in i78g, 7-8; states of, enter war 
against France, 124; Bonaparte and, 
153, 156, 158-166, 211; French driven 
out of, 172, 174, 182; Bonaparte's 
Second Campaign in, 182; northern, 
abandoned to the French, 182; Code 
Napoleon in force in, 190; Napoleon, 
King of, 196, 228; England jealous of 
French domination in, 199; Austria 
eager to recover her position in, 201; 
Venetia ceded to the Kingdom of, 202; 
and the Continental Blockade, 216; 
Napoleon annexes part of the Papal 
States to the Kingdom of, 217, 228, 
232; troops from, go to aid Napoleon, 
224; Austria receives northern, 252; 
and the Congress of Vienna, 252-253; 
Mettemich and, 257, 259, 282; after 
181^, 264-266, 267; and the July Revo- 
lution, 280; Revolution in, 287, 301- 
302; partially conquered, 302, 304; 
conquest of, completed, 305-306, 416; 
Constitutional Statute granted in Sar- 
dinia, 311; War of 18 jg in, 322-324; 
making of the Kingdom of, 325-340; 
Austria to be driven out of, 332, 361, 
418; Napoleon III and, 332-335, 338; 
and the war of /<?5p, 333, 416; aids 
Prussia against Austria, 347; completes 
her unification, 360; joins the Austro. 



634 



INDEX 



Italy, continued 

German Alliance, 375-376, 395, 412; 
France feels the rivalry of, 393, 405; 
Delcasse and, 407; Kingdom of, since 
1870, 409-415; and the Papacy, 409- 
410; and the problem of education, 
411; dreads France, 412; colonial policy 
of, 412; increase of population in, 413- 
414; emigration from, 413-414; acquisi- 
tions of, in igi2, 414; unredeemed, 
414; denounces treaty of alliance with 
Austria, 414; declares war against 
Austria-Hungjiry, 415; principle of na- 
tionahty in, 420; and Africa, 509; and 
the breaches of the Treaty of BerHn, 
596; at war with Turkey, 600-601; and 
TripoH, 600-601; Austria informs, of 
her intention to attack Servia, 606-612. 

Ivory Coast, 405. 

Jacobin Club, 105-107, 130; Robespierre 
and, 106, 141; Louis Philippe and, 289. 

Jacobins, and Girondists, no, in, 118, 
120-126; desire war, in; organize 
demonstration against the King, 113; 
and the insurrection of August 10, 1792, 
116; and the Commune, 117, 126-127; 
demand execution of Louis XVI, 123; 
become masters of the Convention, 127; 
Robespierre and, 141; lose power, 146; 
offices open to, 186; in Paris {.187 1), 386. 

Jaffa, 172. 

Jagow, statement of, 617. 

Jamaica, 442, 487. 

Jameson Raid, 502. 

Janina, falls, 603. 

Japan, Canada and, 493; and Russia, 569, 
• 571,577-582, 593; early history of, 574- 
577; at war with China, 577-580; gains 
Formosa, 577, 582; gains of, by the 
Treaty of Portsmouth, 582; and the 
First Peace Conference at the Hague, 

591- 
Java, 523. 
Jellachich, 303. 
Jemappes, 289. 
Jena, battle of, 210, 211, 238; Prussia 

after, 230. 
Jesuits, 16; expelled from Germany, 367; 

in Switzerland, 528-529. 
Jews, under Louis XVI, 50; position of, 

in South Germany improved, 208; 

Dreyfus and the, 399; position of, in 

England, 432; in Roumania, 553; in 

Russia, 558, 567, 585, 589; emigrate to 

the United States, 567. 
Johannesburg, 501. 



John VI (Portugal), 520. 

Josephine (Beauharnais), Empress, and 
Napoleon, 156, 164, 201, 211; crowned, 
196; divorced, 224. 

Jourdan, 153. 

Juarez, 353. 

July Monarchy, 291-297. 

July Ordinances {1830), 274-276. 

July Revolution {1830), 276-278; influ- 
ence of, 280-288; of 1908 (Turkey), 
555-557, 594-595- 

July 14, 17S9, 76-78, 81; declared a 
national holiday, 392. 

June 20, 1792, 113, 156. 

June 2, 1793, insurrection of, 126-127, 129. 

June Days (June 23-26, 1848), 316, 318. 

Junot, 221. 

Jury, trial by, in Hungary, 299, 300. 

Kalisch, Treaty of, 237-238. 

Kamerun, 374, 408. 

Kara George, 541. 

Kent, Duke of, 443. 

Khartoum, 513-514. 

Kaauchau, Germany secures lease of, 578. 

Kiel, harbor of, 347; treaty of, 534, 536. 

"King of Rome," 226, 232, 318. 

Kioto, university established at, 576. 

Kirk Kihsse, Bulgarians defeat Turks at, 

602, 605. 
Kitchener, Lord, and the Soudan, 474, 

514; and the South African War, 504. 
Kleber, 169, 172. 

Koniggratz, battle of, 348, 351, 355. 
Korea, China and Japan desire control of, 

577; China recognizes independence of, 

577; Japan sends army into, 580-581; 

Russia recognizes Japan's paramount 

interests in, 582; Japan annexes, 582. 
Kosciusko, 283. 
Kossuth, Francis, 425. 
Kossuth, Louis, 298-305, 425. 
Kotzebue, murder of, 261. 
Kruger, Paul, President of the Transvaal, 

502-503. 
Kulturkampf, 366-368. 
Kumanovo, Servian victory at, 602. 
Kunersdorf, battle of, 15. 
Kuropatkin, General, and Port Arthur, 

581. 

Labor Commission, 314. 

Labor Legislation (England), 442, 448- 

449. 
Labor Party, England, 477; supports the 

Liberals, 480. 
Ladrone Islands, 374. 



INDEX 



63s 



Lafayette, and the events of Oct. 5-6, 
ijSg, 82; and the Declaration of the 
Rights of Man, 86-87; favors Louis 
Phihppe, 278, 290-291. 

Laibach, Congress of, 267. 

Lamartine, no, 293, 297; leader of the 
RepubUcans, 313-316. 

Land, Act of iSjo (Ireland), 459, 464, 
470; Act of 1881, 464-465, 470; Pur- 
chase Bill (Gladstone), 468; Purchase 
Act of i8gi (Salisbury), 471; Act of 
I go 3, 471- ■ 

Landesgemeiiide cantons, (Switzerland), 

530- 
Landtag (Prussian), 379. 
Lannes, 169. 
Lassalle, Ferdinand, and Socialism, 368, 

370- 

Lateran, 410. 

Lausanne, Treaty of, 601-602. 

Law of Associations (France), 401-403. 

Law of January 2, igoj (France), 403. 

Law of Papal Guarantees, 409-410. 

Law of 22nd Prairial, 142-145. 

Law of 1 868 (Hungary), 425. 

Law School (Paris), 150. 

Lebrun, iSo. 

Leeds, unrepresented, 432. 

Legendre, 113. 

Legion of Honor, founded, 190; Drej'fus 
and, 399. 

Legislative Assembly, 101-119, 313. 

Legislative Body, 181, 321, 358. 

Legislativ^e Chamber, larger rights 
granted to, 354. 

Legitimacy, doctrine of, 250. 

Legitimists (France), 290, 387. 

Leipsic, battle of, 238-239, 348; King 
of Saxony retains, 252; commemora- 
tion of battle of, 261. 

Leo Xni (Pope), and the Kultur- 
kampf, 368; and the Law of Papal 
Guarantees, 410-41 1. 

Leoben, preliminary peace of, 162, 164. 

Leopold of Coburg, becomes Leopold I, 
King of Belgium, 282, 353; and Queen 
Victoria, 444; reign of, 523-524. 

Leopold \1 (Belgium), and Congo Free 
State, 509-510; reign of, 524-525- 

Leopold, of Hohenzollern, accepts Span- 
ish crown, 356; declines crown, 516. 

Lcse-majeste, 379. 

Lesseps, Ferdinand de, and the Suez 
Canal, 511. 

Lettrc de cachet, 32, 50-51, 54, 70, 76. 

Liao-tung peiunsula, Japan and, 577-578, 
581-582. 



Liao-yang, battle of, 581. 

Liberal-Unionists. See Unionists. 

Liberals, of German}^, 260-262, 306, 345, 
350; in Spain, 268, 515; in France, 272, 
274; in Poland, 286; Piedmont the 
hope of Italian, 329; Napoleon III 
and, 354; in England, 451, 453, 454, 
463, 469-470, 472-473, 475-485; 
blocked by the House of Lords, 477- 
480; of Holland, 523; in Russia, 560, 

.567, 585- 

Liberty, restrictions upon, in France, 48- 
51, 185; Montesquieu and, 53, 56, 
89; Voltaire and, 56; Rousseau and, 
56; economic, demanded in France, 
64; constitution must guarantee in- 
dividual, 69; Louis XVI proclaimed 
the Restorer of French, 80; Lafayette 
and, 86; principles of French, 87-89; 
spread of ideas of, 112; Madame 
Roland on, 136; the year One of, 137; 
the Consuls promise fidelity to, 177; 
Napoleon and, 184-186, 244; rehgious, 
established in Germany, 208; Met- 
ternich and, 257; suppressed in Ger- 
many, 262; religious, established in 
Hungary, 300; Cavour and, 340, 341; 
religious, in Great Britain, 432-433; 
religious, in Spain, 516. 

Library, National, 150. 

Liebknecht, and Socialism, 369. 

Ligurian Republic. See Genoa. 

Lisbon, 217, 221, 519-521. 

Lissa, 349. 

Liverpool, 453. 

Livingstone, David, 508-509. 

Livonia, 20, 558. 

Lobau, Island of, 224. 

Lodi, 159, 160. 

Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, Austria 
receives, 252, 257, 264; declares its 
independence, 302; revolution in, 416; 
Austria loses, 426. 

Lombardy, Austria controls, 153, 159; 
Austria relinquishes her rights in, 165; 
Austria acquires, 253; Austrian policy 
in, 265; revolution in, 301-302; con- 
quered, 333; ceded to Piedmont, 333, 
416; ilHteracy in, 411. See also Lom- 
bardo-Venetian Kingdom. 

Lombardy-Venetia. See Lombardo-Ve- 
netian Kingdom. 

Lomenie de Brienne, 68. 

London, 191; conference *in, recognizes 
independence of Belgium, 282; Maz- 
zini in, 328; Times and the Dreyfus 
case, 398; ParUament meets at, 430, 



636 



INDEX 



London, continued 

456; Standard, 434; riots in, 438; and 
the Chartist agitation, 445-446; Ire- 
land and the EngUsh Parhament in, 
468-469, 483; imperial conference 
in, 473; and old age pensions, 476; 
Treaty of {1S27), 542-543; Treaty of 
{191 3), 603-604. 

Lonsdale, Lord, 431. 

Lords, House of (iSij), 429, 431; de- 
feats the second Reform Bill, 438; 
and the third Reform BiU, 438-439; 
bishops of Irish Church lose seats in, 
457; House of, defeats Second Home 
Rule Bill, 472; Gladstone attacks 
House of, 472; the Liberals blocked 
by, 477; reject the budget of igog, 
479; Asquith and, 479-482; passes 
the Parhament Bill, 482; and the 
Third Home Rule Bill, 485; and Welsh 
Disestabhshment, 485. 

"Lord's Veto," the Liberals and, 4S0. 

Lorraine, Germans invade, 357; part of, 
ceded to Germany, 360, 369, 374, 384. 
See also Alsace-Lorraine. 

Loubet, President, and Dreyfus, 398. 

Louis I (Bavaria), 554. 

Louis I (Portugal), 521. 

Louis XIII (France), 405. 

Louis XIV, 60, 474. 

Louis XV, and the Seven Years' War, 
7, 404; extravagance of, 60; death of, 
60. 

Louis XVI, government under, 32-51, 
60-68; extravagance of, 34-35, 38; 
and Protestantism, 48-50; and the 
beginnings of the Revolution, 60-84; 
his character, 60-62; his ministers, 
64-68; and the States-General, 68- 
73; and the National Assembly, 73- 
74; and the revolution in Paris, 78; 
proclaimed the "Restorer of French 
Liberty," 80; and the decrees of 
August 4, i/Sg, 81; leaves Ver- 
sailles, 84; accepts the Declaration 
of the Rights of Man, 87; and the 
Constitution of lygr, 89-90, 98, 181; 
and the Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy, 95-96; and the flight to 
Varennes, 96-98; and the Legislative 
Assembly, 101-119; and the Dec- 
laration of PiUnitz, 103; his brothers, 
103, 187, 191; treason of, 109, 112, 
122; Jacobins and, 111-113, 116; 
Duke of Brunswick and, 113-114; 
vetoes decrees, 113, 156; seeks safety 
in the Assembly. 114; suspended, 



Louis XVI, continued 

116; and the Revolution, 122; trial 
and execution of, 123-124, 136, 274, 
289. 

Louis XVIII, legitimate ruler of France, 
187; proclaimed King, 241; grants 
charter, 241-242; policy of, 241-242; 
flees, 244; restored, 270-272; Alexan- 
der I and, 559. 

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 31 7-320. See 
also Napoleon III. 

Louis Philippe, becomes King of France, 
278; recognized by the powers, 280; 
and Belgium, 282; and Italy, 287; 
reign of, 289-297, 313; fall of, 296, 
298, 300; and Algiers, 404. 

Louise, Queen, 209, 342. 

Louvre, Museum of, 150. 

Lovett, and " The Rotten House of Com- 
mons," 444. 

Lowe, Robert, and parUamentary reform, 
452. 

LUbeck, 217, 228, 365. 

Lucca, 204, 264. 

Lucerne, 527. 

Lucknow, 490. 

Lule Burgas, Bulgarians defeat Turks at, 
602, 605. 

Luneville, Treaty of, 183, 199, 205. 

Liitzen, battle of, 238. 

Luxembourg Palace, 314. 

Luxemburg, a neutral state, 616-617. 

Lyons, 127, 133. 

Lytton, Lord, Viceroy of India, 490. 

Macaulay, T. B., and representation in 
the House of Commons, 437; and 
Gladstone, 454. 

Macaulay, Zachary, and slavery, 441. 

Macedonia, Bulgaria and, 547, 548, 552, 
604-605; Greece and, 555, 602; Young 
Turks and, 599-600, 602; Servia and, 
604. 

Machiavelh, 13. 

Mack, General, 201. 

MacMahon, Marshal elected President, 
3S8-389; poHcy of, 391-392, 401. 

Madagascar, France and, 393, 406. 

Madeira, Portugal and, 521. 

Madeleine, 295. 

Madrid, 222, 518. 

Magenta, battle of, 333, 416. 

Magyars, the dominant race in Hungary, 
257, 302-303, 304, 420, 422-423; Francis 
Joseph and, 416-417; oppose demands 
of Czechs in Bohemia, 421; policy of, 
424-426. 



INDEX 



637 



Mahratta confederacy, overthrow of, 
488. 

Majuba Hill, battle of, 500-501. 

Malesherbes, 50. 

Malta, 170, 183, 252, 48S. 

Mamelukes, 170. 

Manchester, unrepresented, 432; and the 
Anti-Corn Law League, 447. 

Manchu dynasty overthrown, 583. 

Manchuria, invaded by the Japanese, 577; 
Russian activity in, 579-580; Russians 
and Japanese to evacuate, 582. 

Manin, Daniel, and Venice, 301. 

Manitoba, 492. 

Mantua, siege of, 159; fall of, 160. 

Manuel (King of Portugal), 521. 

Maoris, 497. 

Marat, a monarchist, 98; incites the Sep- 
tember Massacres, 118; and the Jaco- 
bins, 118; and the Girondists, 121; the 
Commune and, 126; Charlotte Corday 
and, 136. 

Marchand, seizes Fashoda, 407. 

March Days, in Germany, 301, 311. 

March Laws, 300-301; abrogated, 304. 

Marches, the, annexed by Victor Emman- 
uel II, 338-339. 

Marengo, 182, 186, 1S7, 191, 201; anni- 
versary of, 211. 

Maria Christina (Spanish Regent), 518. 

Maria da Gloria, 520. 

Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 13, 
29, 62. 

Marie, Minister of Commerce, 315. 

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, ex- 
travagance of, 34; accession of, 60; her 
influence over Louis XVI, 62-64, 66, 
81-84; and Turgot, 66; and the flight 
to Varennes, 96-97; treason of, 98, 112; 
Duke of Brunswick and, 114; im- 
prisoned, 116; death of, 136, 226. 

Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, 
marries Napoleon, 226; given Duchy 
of Parma, 253. 

Maritime Province, 572. 

Marmont, 158, 169. 

Marseilles, 127, 133. 

Marsh, the, 121. 

Martinique, 404. 

Marx, Karl, and Socialism, 369. 

Massacre of the boulevards, 320. 

Massawa, 412. 

Massena, 157, 182, 185. 

Mauritius, 441, 488. 

Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, and 
Mexico, 352-353. 

May Laws, 367-368. 



Mazzini, Joseph, and the Italian Rlsorgi- 
■mento, 325-328; Cavour and, 330; 
Garibaldi and, 335. 

Medical School (Paris), 150. 

Mehemet AU, and Egypt, 511; Turkey 
seeks aid from, against Greece, 542. 

Melas, 182. 

Melbourne, Lord, and the first Reform 
Bill, 436; and Queen Victoria, 444. 

Melikoff, Loris, 566-567. 

Metric system, established in France, 150. 

Metternich, and the Congress of Vienna, 
249-255; influence of, 255-257; his 
policy in Austria, 258-259; his policy 
in Germany, 259-262; and the "right 
of intervention," 266-269, 280; and the 
revolution in Germany, 287; and Eng- 
land, 296, 300; and the revolution of 
1S4S, 298; overthrow of, 300; and Bis- 
marck, 370; and Canning, 435; and 
Alexander I, 560. 

]Metz, 96; besieged by the Germans, 358; 
fall of, 359; ceded to Germany, 360. 

Me.xico, Napoleon III and, 352-354; and 
the First Peace Conference at the 
Hague, 591. 

Michelet, on the Constituent Assembly, 
88. 

Miguel (Dom), 520. 

IMilan, capital of Lombardy, 153; Bona- 
parte and, 159, 166; Napoleon issues 
Decrees from, 216; occupied, 333. 

Milan, King of Servia, 553. 

Militarism, 590-592. 

MiUtary School (France), 396, 399. 

Mill, John Stuart, and woman suffrage, 

452. 

Milyoukov, Professor, 569. 

Miquelon, 404. 

"Mir," 559, 562. 

Mirabeau, on Prussia, 11; imprisonment 
of, 51, 76; defies the King, 74; on the 
Constitution of lygi, 93; and the royal 
flight, 96; a leader in the Constituent 
Assembly, 136; compared with Robes- 
pierre, 141. 

Miramar, 353. 

Mission, representatives on. See Repre- 
sentatives on mission. 

IMissolonghi, fall of, 542. 

Modena, Duke of, and Bonaparte, 162, 
165-166; Austria and, 253, 264; revo- 
lution in, 287; rider should be restored 
iri) 333) 334) annexed to Italy, 334. 

Mohammed V (Turkey), 598. 

Mohammedans, and the Sepoy Mutiny, 



638 



INDEX 



Moldavia, practically independent, 543; 
independent, 545. See Roumania. 

Moltke, General von, 347-348. 

Mommsen, on Germany, 382. 

Monaco, 264. 

Monarchists (France) control National 
Assembly, 384-385; wish to abolish 
the RepubUc, 387-389; secure ma- 
jority in Senate, 391; the Republic- 
ans victorious over, 392; wish to 
overthrow the Republic, 395, 399-400. 

Monastir, Servians capture, 602. 

Mondovi, 158. 

Mongols, 18-19. 

Monroe, James (President of the U. S.), 
and the Monroe Doctrine, 268-269. 

Montalembert, 318. 

Montcalm, defeated by Wolfe, 4. 

Montebello, 164. 

Montenegro, declares war against Tur- 
key, 547; independence of, recognized, 
547, 548; Servia covets, 597; and the 
Balkan War of 191 2, 602-605; joins 
war against Bulgaria, 605-606; and 
the Treaty of Bucharest, 605-606. 

Montesquieu, influence of, 46, 52-53, 89, 
129; Rousseau and, 56-57. 

Montevideo, 336. 

Montijo, Mile. Eugenie de. Napoleon III 
marries, 322. 

Montreal, 491. 

Morea, 542-543- 

Moreau, and the campaigns in Germany, 
153, 182, 183; and Napoleon, 160. 

Morley, and Irish Home Rule, 468. 

Morocco, France and, 406-408; Turkey 
and, 507; Spain and, 519. 

Mortmain, in France, 400. 

Moscow, ancient capital of Russia, 18, 
19, 22; Napoleon's march to, 235-236; 
his retreat from, 236, 560; students 
sent from University of, 570. 

Mt. Tabor, 172. 

Mountain, the, 121. See also Jacobins. 

Mukden, captured by Japanese, 581. 

Municipal government (England), reform 
of, 442-443. _ 

Murat, Joachim, brings cannon to the 
Tuileries, 148; saUs with Bonaparte, 
169; returns to France, 172; and the 
19th' of Brumaire, 177; humbly born, 
185; becomes Duke of Berg, 204; and 
the army in Spain, 218; becomes 
King of Naples, 218, 228; and the 
Russian Campaign, 234. 

Muscovy, Principality of. See Russia. 

Museum of the Louvre, 150, 162, 166. 



Nancy, Bishop of, 78. 
Nanking, Treaty of, 574; Republic pro- 
claimed at, 583. 
Nantes, Edict of, revoked, 48; city of. 

134. 

Naples, Joseph becomes King of, 203, 
218; Murat becomes King of, 218, 228; 
after 181 5, 264-265; insurrection in, 
266; the congresses and, 267; Austria 
sends army into, 267-268; revolution 
in, 301-302; conquest of the Kingdom 
of, 335-340; iUiteracy in, 411. 

Napoleon, and the Revolution, 10, 28, 
no, 148; witnesses attack on the 
Tuileries, 114, 156; defends the Con- 
vention, 148-149, 156; and the codi- 
fication of the laws (Code Napoleon), 
150; and the Italian campaign, 153, 
158-166; early Ufe of, 153-156; career 
of, under the Directory, 156-177; as 
Consul, 177, 179-192; his rehgion, 187; 
and the Concordat, 187-189, 402; Pius 
VII and, 187-189, 195-196, 217, 220, 
232, 264, 402; and the Duke d'Enghien, 
191; consul for Ufe, 192; Emperor of 
the French, 192, 194-226; "Protector" 
of the Confederation of the Rhine, 
206, 228, 259; and Frederick WiUiam 
III, 208-209; concludes Peace of TU- 
sit, 211-212, 217; and England, 213- 
218, 221, 228; and Italy, 217, 264; 
and Spain, 217-223, 262-263; ^-nd 
Alexander I at Erfurt, 221-222; and 
Austria, 223-226; divorces Josephine 
and marries Marie Louise, 224-226; 
dechne and fall of, 228-247; Russia, 
Prussia and Austria, his allies, 228; 
invades Russia, 234-237; and the 
campaign of 1813 in Germany, 238- 
239; forced to abdicate, 241; returns 
to Paris, 242-244, 247, 250; and 
Waterloo, 246-247; sent to St. Helena, 
247, 257; death of, 247; effects of the 
overthrow of, 249-257; and Metter- 
nich, 257; his nephew, 317-320; and 
Switzerland, 527; and Denmark, 533. 

Napoleon III (Emperor of the French), 
320-324; Cavour and, 332; and Italy, 
332-335, 338; and the PreUminaries 
of Villafranca, 333; takes Savoy and 
Nice, 335; allows Victor Emmanuel to 
anne.x the Marches and Umbria, 338; 
fails to use his opportunity, 351; and 
Mexico, 352-354; Gambetta and, 354- 
355; and the Hohenzollern candidacy, 
356-357; taken prisoner, 358; Bona- 
partists desire restoration of, 388; and 



INDEX 



639 



Napoleon TIT, continued 

the conquest of Africa, 405; and the 

Crimean War, 544. See also Louis 

Napoleon Bonaparte. 
Nassau, supports Austria in 1866, 347; 

Prussia incorporates the duchy of, 

349- 

National Archives, 150. 

National Assembly {1789), Third Estate 
declares itself, 73; nobUity and clergy 
join, 74; becomes Constituent Assem- 
bly, 74; effect of the Revolution in 
Paris upon, 78-80; threats against, 
82; goes to Paris, 84; sends for Louis 
XVI, 97; adjourns, 98; self-denying 
ordinance, 98, 105. See also Con- 
stituent Assembly. 

National Constituent Assembly (France, 
1S71), 2>'ii, 315, 384-388; forces resig- 
nation of Thiers, 388; and the framing 
of the constitution, 388-396. 

National Council, Switzerland, 529. 

National Guard, organized, 78; called 
out, 296. 

National Library, 150. 

National Workshops (France), 314-316. 

Nationality, development of, in Spain, 
219-220; in Austria, 223; in Prussia, 
230-232; principle of, ignored at Con- 
gress of Vienna, 254; development of, 
in Germany, 260; in Hungary, 303; 
di\asive effect of the principle of, in 
Austria-Hungary, 420; Irish feeHng for, 
466; Australia and, 495; South African 
Union and, 505; development of, in 
Switzerland, 529. 

Navarino, battle of, 543. 

Nazareth, 172. 

Necker, 62; financial reforms of, 66-67; 
recalled, 68; incapacity of, 69, 70; 
dismissed, 76. 

Nelson, Admiral, and the French, 170, 
214. 

Netherlands. See Austrian Netherlands 
and Belgium and Holland. 

New Brunswick, England and, 487, 491- 
492. 

Newfoundland, 487, 491-493. 

New Guinea, 374. 

New Holland, 494. 

New South Wales, 494-497. 
■ New York Herald, sends Stanley to 
Africa, 508. 

New Zealand, 494, 497-498, 505. 

Ney, 185, 211, 234. 

Nice, 158; France and, 332, 334; Gari- 
baldi bom at, 335. 



Nicholas I (Russia), and Poland, 286; 
and Francis Joseph I, 305; death of, 
544; reign of, 560-561. _ 

Nicholas II (Russia), reign of, 569-571, 
586-588; promises a Duma, 587; and 
the limitation of armaments, 591; and 
the Hague Conferences, 591-593. 

Nihilism, 564-566. 

Nikolsburg, Peace of, 347. 

Nile, Battle of the, 171; sources of, 508. 

Noailles, Viscount of, 78. 

Nobility, in France, under the Old Re- 
gime, 38-39, 41, 43-45, 70; position 
of, in the States General, 72-73; atti- 
tude of, toward the National Assem- 
bly, 74; renounces feudal dues, 78; 
titles of, abolished, 103, 185; com- 
manding position of, in England, 429* 
aboUtion of the Norwegian, 537; in 
Russia, 558, 561-562. 

Nogi, General, and the siege of Port 
Arthur, 581. 

Non-juring priests, origin of, 95 ; and the 
war in the Vendee, 102; emigrate, 103; 
decree against, 113; murdered, 118; 
guillotined, 134; laws against, relaxed, 
186. 

Normal School, 150. 

North, Lord, ministry of, 6. 

North Cape, 289. 

North German Confederation {i86j- 
187 1), 349-350, 363; opposed by Lieb- 
knecht and Bebel, 369. 

Norway, joined mth Sweden, 253, 533- 
537; aboUtion of the nobility of, 537; 
dissolution of the union of Sweden 
and, 537-538; suffrage in, 538. 

Notre Dame, 138, 139, 196. 

Novara, 267, 306, 329. 

Nova Scotia, 4, 487, 491-492. 

Obrenovitch, Milosch, 541: 

O'Connell, and the repeal movement, 
456,467. 

October 5-6, 1789, 82-84, 87. 

Oku, General, and Mukden, 581. 

Old Age, Insurance Law, Germany, 
{i88q), 371; Pensions Act (England), 
1908, 476; Pension Law (New Zea- 
land), 498; pensions in Denmark, 533. 

Old Catholics, in Germany, 367-368. 

Old Regime, in Europe, 1-30; in France, 
31-58, loi, 185, 186; desire to restore, 
102; Bonaparte prevents the restora- 
tion of, 185; Bourbons do not restore, 
270; attitude of the July Monarchy 
toward, 291; England a land of, 429. 



640 



INDEX 



Old Sarum, 431. 

Oldenburg, Grand Duchy of, 234. 

Olmtitz, humiliation of, 311. 

Omdurman, 514. 

Opium War, 573-574- 

Orange, House of. See Holland. 

Orange P'ree State, 499, 503-504. 

Orange River Colony, 504. 

Orders in Council, 216. 

Ordinances of July {1830), 274-276. 

Oregon dispute, settled, 492-493. 

"Organic laws" (Russia), 587. 

Orleanists, uphold the right of the Count 
of Paris, 387-388. 

Orleans, Duke of, intrigues of, 81, 289; 
death of, 136, 289; Louis Philippe, 
Duke of, becomes King, 278. 

Oscar II (Sweden and Norway), 536- 

538- 

Otto I (King of Greece), 543, 554. 

Ottoman Empire, Disruption of the, and 
the Rise of the Balkan States, 540- 
557; collapse of the, 594-600. See 
also Turkey. 

Ouchy, Treaty of, 601. 

Oudh province, 489. 

Owen, Robert, and child labor, 442. 

Oxford, University of, 432, 453-454; reli- 
gious tests in, abolished, 460. 

Pact of iSi^ (Switzerland), 527, 529. 
Palais Roj^al, 289. 

Palmerston, Lord, and Italy, 334; and 
Cavour, 339; and the first Reform BUI, 

436. 

Papacy. See CathoHc Church (Roman). 

Papal States, in lySg, i ; Napoleon and, 
165, 217, 228, 232; reestablished, 253, 
264; revolution in, 287, 301-302; Vic- 
tor Emmanuel leads army into, 338. 

Paris, Peace of {1763), 4; capital of 
France, 32, 36; paupers in {1788), 48; 
Parlement of, demands convocation of 
the States General, 68-70; and the 
events of July 14, 1789, 76-78; organ- 
izes the National Guard, 78; . Arch- 
bishop of, 80; government removed 
to, 84; Louis XVI plans to escape 
from, 96-97; celebrates "the end of 
the Revolution," loi; poUtical clubs 
in, 106-107, 130; Assembly provides 
army for the protection of, 113; de- 
struction of, threatened, 114; Revolu- 
tionary Commune of , 116-118, 126-127, 
137-140, 141, 146; September Mas- 
sacres in, 117-118; the Convention 
and, 1 21-150; Jacobins and, 121; exe- 



Paris, continued 

cutions in, 136, 145; organizes insur- 
rection against the Convention, 145, 
148-149; schools of, 150; Museum of, 
150, 162; Napoleon and, 153, 155-157, 
162, 166, 169, 173, 210, 237, 241, 243- 
244, 247; Councils return to, 177; 
government centralized in, under the 
Consulate, 182; becomes center of 
German politics, 206-208; ecclesias- 
tical court in, 224; capitulates, 240; 
First Treaty of, 249; ceases to be cen- 
ter of European affairs, 259; clerical 
reaction in, 274; and the July Revo- 
lution, 276, 281; Poles come to, 286; 
Louis Philippe and, 289, 295-296; 
Count of, 296, 388-389; June Days in, 
316; coup d'etat in, 319; massacre of 
the boulevards, 320; modernized, 322; 
Congress of {1856), 322, 332, 545; Re- 
publican party master of, 355; siege of, 
358-360; and the Commune, 384-386; 
second siege of, 386; seat of govern- 
ment transferred to, 392; Boulanger 
elected deputy in, 395; French colonies 
ruled from, 505; Treaty of {i8g8), 519; 
Young Turks in, 555. 

Parlement, 45, 66; of Paris, 68-69. 

Parliament, supremacy of, in England, 
2-3; George III and, 5-7; composition 
of English {18 15), 429-432; Cobbett 
urges reform of, 434; the Tories and 
the reform of, 434-436; the Whigs re- 
form, 436-441; demand for further 
reform of, 444-445, 451-452; Irish, 
abolish, 456; demand for Irish, 466, 
468, 483; Home Rulers and English, 
467, 472, 480; Irish to be represented 
in London, 483; Irish, granted to 
Ireland, 483-485; EngHsh, suspends 
Third Home Rule Bill and Bill for 
Welsh Disestablishment, 485; EngHsh, 
passes British North America Act, 492; 
in Ottawa, 492; British, and Australia, 
495; Austrahan, 497; South African, 

504- 

Parliament BiU (England), 1911, 481- 
482, 485. 

Parma, Duke of, and Bonaparte, 162, 
165; Duchy of, given to Marie Louise, 
253, 264; revolution in, 287, 334; an- 
nexed to Italy, 334. 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, and Home Rule, 
467. 

Patterson, EUzabeth, 205. 

Peace movement, 590-594. 

Peace of Paris, 4. 



INDEX 



641 



Peasantry, in France, 47-48; and the 
Bourbon restoration, 242; in Russia, 

558-559- 

Pedro (Dom) and Brazil, 520. 

Pedro IV (Portugal), 520. 

Pedro Y (Portugal), 520. 

Peel, Sir Robert, reforms the Penal Code, 
435; and the second Reform Bill, 438; 
and Queen Victoria, 444; repeals the 
Corn Laws, 448; Gladstone and, 454. 

Peking, capital of China, 573; Japan 
advances toward, 577; Legations in, 
besieged, 579. 

Penal Code, reformed in England, 435. 

Peninsula War, 218-222. 

People's Charter, 444-445. 

Pi re Duchesne, 137. 

Perry, Commodore, and Japan, 575-576. 

Persia, and the First Peace Conference at 
the Hague, 591. 

Pescadores Islands, ceded to Japan, 577. 

Peter the Great, 19-24. 

Peter I (Ser\4a), 553. 

Peter III (Russia), 24. 

Philadelphia Convention, 89, 93. 

Philhellenic societies founded, 542. 

Philip Equality. See Orleans, Duke of. 

Phihppe Egalite. See Orleans, Duke of. 

Philippines, 515, 519. 

Phrygian cap, 108. 

Piacenza, 159. 

Pichegru, 191. 

Picquart, Colonel, and the Dreyfus case, 
397) 399; becomes Minister of War, 
399- 

Piedmont, in lySg, 8; emigres in, 96; in 
the war against France, 149, 152-158; 
cedes Savoy and Nice to France, 158; 
King of, restored, 249; after 181^, 264- 
265; revolution in, 266, 267-268, 301- 
302; army of, defeated, 306; Consti- 
tutional Statute granted by Charles 
Albert to, 311; and the Crimean War, 
322, 332, 544-545; a constitutional 
state, 329-332; and the interview at 
Plombieres, 332; and the war of iSjg, 
333~339'> a-nd the Kingdom of Italy, 
339; and Prussia, 341, 344-345; con- 
stitution of, 409; illiteracy in, 411. 

Pillnitz, Declaration of, 103. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, Prime 
Minister of England, 4; and the 
American Revolution, 6. 

Pitt the Younger, war leader, 183; and 
the French Revolution, 428; on repre- 
sentation in Great Britain, 432; and 
the House of Commons, 437. 



Pius VI (Pope), 162, 166. 

Pius VII (Pope) and Louis XVIII, 187; 
and Napoleon, 187-189, 195-196, 217, 
220, 228, 232, 264, 402. 

Pius IX (Pope), and the Kulturkampf, 
367-368; and the Law of Papal Guar- 
antees, 409-411; death of, 410. 

Pius X (Pope), denounces the Associa- 
tions of Worship, 403. 

Pi y Margall, 518. 

Plain, the, 121. 

Plassey, centenary of, 489. 

Plebiscite, 192, 320. 

Plehve, iron regime of, 585. 

Plevna, siege of, 547, 553. 

Plombieres, interview at, 332. 

Plural voting (England), 466, 477; Bel- 
gium, 525. 

Poland, in lySg, i; and Russia, 17, 24, 
283-287, 560; Partitions of, 17, 29, 
104, 164, 211, 213, 224, 234, 283, 558; 
Napoleon and, 211; Alexander I and, 
234, 250, 558-560; and the July Revo- 
lution, 280, 282; Revolutions in, 283- 
287, 563-564; becomes province of the 
Russian Empire, 286; Nicholas I and, 
560; Russification of, 564. 

Polignac ministry, 274. 

Polytechnic School, 150. 

Pomerania, Prussia acquires, 252. 

Pondicherry, 404. 

Port Arthur, seized by Japan, 577; ceded 
to Japan, 577; Japan forced to give 
up, 578; Russia secures lease of, 578- 
579; Japan torpedoes Russian fleet 
near, 5S0-581; siege of, 581; Russia 
transfers to Japan her lease of, 582, 
586. 

Porte. See Turkey. 

Porto Rico, Spain and, 515, 517, 519. 

Portsmouth (England), voters in, 443. 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Treaty of, 
582. 

Portugal, and the Jesuits, 16; Napoleon 
and, 217-218, 519-520; Duke of Well- 
ington and, 221, 235; England and, 
217, 223; and the Congress of Vienna, 
253; revolution in, 266; and Africa, 
507, 509-510; 181 5-1 91 4, 519-521; and 
China, 574. 

Posen, province of, 252. 

Potsdam, 210. 

Pragmatic Sanction, 29. 

Prague, revolt in, 302; Peace of, 347, 
355; Bohemia desires Francis Joseph 
to be crowned in, 421; University of, 
divided, 422. 



642 



INDEX 



Prairial, Law of 22nd, 142-145. 

Prefect, 181. 

President (French Republic), 390-391, 

395- 
Press, censorship of, under Louis XVI 
32; restricted under the Old Regime 
50; the Commune destroys the free- 
dom of, 117; Bonaparte and, 185 
censorship of, in Austria, 258; censor- 
ship of, in Germany, 262, 287, 342 
gagged in Spain, 263; free in France 
under the Restoration, 271-272 
liberty of, in Poland, 285, 559; in 
Hungary, 299, 300; freedom of, in 
France, 354; freedom of, demanded 
in Germany, 369; freedom of, secured 
in France, 392; freedom of, restricted 
in England, 434; and the Char- 
tist movement, 445; freedom of, in 
Spain, 516; freedom of, in Switzerland, 
528; censorship of, relaxed in Russia, 
561, 563; gagged in_ Russia, 567, 
569; freedom of, promised in Russia, 

587. 
Pressburg, Treaty of, 202-203. 
Pretoria, 504. 
Prim, General, 516. 
Prince Consort. See Albert of Saxe- 

Coburg. 
Prince Edward Island, 487, 491-492. 
Prince Imperial, 322. 
Proportional Representation (Belgium), 

525- 

"Protected Princes of India," 490. 

Protection, Belgium favors, 281; Bis- 
marck adopts policy of, 372-373; 
France, Austria, Russia and the United 
States believers in, 372; England and, 
446-448, 475; Alexander II (Russia) 
adopts system of, 568. 

Protestantism, outlawed in France, 48; 
Protestants and the Civil Constitu- 
tion of the Clergy, 95; in Holland, 281; 
in Ireland, 455-457, 469- 

Provence, Count of, 103-104. 

Provinces, of France, 35, 92; tariff 
boundaries of, 37. 

Provisional Government of National 
Defense (France), 297, 313-316, 358- 

359, 384- 
Prussia, in 1789, i, 9-17; in the Seven 
Years' War, 4, 14-15; and Austria, 
lo-ii, 13, 14-15, 29, 124; rise of, 10- 
17, 25; and Poland, 17, 29, 164, 234, 
250, 283; and Russia, 25, 211; and the 
emigres, 103; joins Austria in the war 
against France, 113-114, 149; makes 



Prussia, continued 

peace with France, 149, 152; policy 
of Frederick William III of, 208-210; 
Napoleon and, 210-213, 215, 228, 234; 
not included in the Confederation of 
the Rhine, 213, 228; abolishes serfdom, 
230; and the Continental Blockade, 
217; development of nationaUty in, 
230-232; army reforms in, 231; and 
the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 234, 
238; King of, makes treaty of alliance 
with Russia, 237, 238; and the Con- 
gress of Vienna, 242, 249-255; and the 
Waterloo Campaign, 244-246; retains 
Posen, 252; gains of, by Congress of 
Vienna, 252; and the Holy Alliance, 
255; and the Quadruple Alliance, 255; 
King of, promises constitution, 260- 
261; and the Carlsbad Decrees, 262; 
and the "right of intervention," 266- 
269; and the revolutions in Germany, 
280; recognizes independence of Bel- 
gium, 282; and the revolution in 
Poland, 282-287; ^nd the revolution 
in Germany, 287; King of, promises 
constitution, 301-302; and the prob- 
lem of German unity, 307-312; three- 
class system of election in, 311-312, 
380; and the war in Italy, 333; given 
a constitution, 341; army reform in, 
342-345; Bismarck and, 343-35°; 
three wars of, 345-349, 355-361, 533; 
annexations to, 349; and the North 
German Confederation, 349-350; and 
the year 1S66, 351; and the comple- 
tion of German unification, 361; King 
of, is German Emperor, 363; represen- 
tation of, in Bundesrath, 363-364; the 
great powers of the King of, 366; 
and the Kulturkampf, 367-368; and 
the Falk Laws, 367-368; demand for 
electoral reform in, 379; rules German 
Empire, 379-380; demand for parlia- 
mentary reform in, 380; the resolute 
opponent of democracy, 382; military 
system of, adopted in France, 387; 
Austria humiliates, 416; and the Polish 
insurrection {1863), 564; and China, 
574; military system of, adopted in 
Europe, 590;- and the neutrality of 
Belgium, 616. Sec also German Em- 
pire. 

Prussian Union {1840), 310-31 1. 

Public Safety. See Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety. 

Punjab, annexation of, 489-490. 

Pyramids, battle of the, 170. 



INDEX 



643 



Quadruple Alliance, 254-255. 
Quakers, position of, in England, 432. 
Quebec, 491. 
Queensland, 495. 
Quesnay, 52. 

Radetzky, defeats Charles Albert, 302. 

Ramolino, Laetitia, 153. 

Ravenna, 336. 

Reason, Worship of. See Worship. 

Red Cross Society, Russia and, 586. 

Referendum, 127, 530-531. 

Reform banquets, 295. 

Reform Bill, first, 436-437; second, 438; 
{1833), third, 438-441, 444, 45 1, 454, 
465; of 1867, 451-452, 465; of 1884, 
465-466. 

Reichenau, 289. 

Reichsrath (Austrian Parliament), 422. 

Reichstag, created, 350, 363-365; the 
Center party in, 367-368; Socialists in 
the, 369, 371, 379; and State Socialism, 
■371-372; reform of, demanded, 379- 
382; disapproves action of William II, 
381 ; Bethmann-Hollweg's ofiicial state- 
ment in, 617. 

Reign of Terror, no, 128, 136, 150; Dan- 
ton and, 139-140. 

Religious orders, in France, 400-401. 

Renncs, court-martial at, 397-399. 

Representatives on mission, 129-130. 

Republic, established in France, no, 120, 
147; under the Convention, 120-150; 
and the Constitution of ijgs, 147-148; 
under the Directory, 152-177; under 
the Consulate, 177, 179-192; England 
recognizes the French, 183; and the 
Concordat, 188-189; Louis Philippe 
and, 289, 296; rise of the second, in 
France, 297, 313-320; Constitution of 
the, 313, 315-317; Louis Napoleon 
Bonaparte offers his services to, 318; 
Louis Napoleon overthrows the, 319- 
320, 321; Third, established in France, 
358, 384; Thiers and the, 387; the 
Republicans control, 391; and the 
Church, 391, 400-403; and education, 
393; colonial policy of, 393-394; dis- 
content with the, 394-395; weathers 
the crisis, 395; and the Dreyfus case, 
396-400; and the separation of Church 
and State, 400-403; expansion under 
the Third, 405-408; Spain declared a, 
517-518; Portugal proclaimed a, 521; 
China proclaimed a, 583. 

Republican Party, in France, created, 98; 
Lafayette, the leader of, 278; and Louis 



Republican Party, continued 

Philippe, 290-292, 296-297; in Ger- 
many, fails, 310; Lamartine, the leader 
of, 313-316; Napoleon III crushes, 321; 
secures control of Chamber of Deputies, 
391; and clericalism, 391; controls 
government, 392; and education, 392- 
393; in Portugal, 521. 

Residents (EngHsh) in India, 488, 490. 

Restoration, France under the, 270-279. 

Reunion, 404. 

Revolution of 1688 in England, 3. 

Revolution, American, 6-7, 491; Spanish 
{1820), 263; of July, igo8 (Turkey), 
556. See also French Revolution. 

Revolutionary Comjnune of Paris. See 
Paris. 

Revolutionary Tribunal, created, 124, 

129, 140; Marat and, 126; work of, 

130, ^33> 134, 140-146; Robespierre 
and, 141-146. 

Revolutions beyond France, 280-288. 

Rhenish Confederation. See Confedera- 
tion of the Rhine. 

Rhodes, Italy seizes, 601. 

Rhodes, Cecil, 502. 

Rhodesia, 502, 505. 

Richeheu, 405. 

Rights of Man, Declaration of, 86-89, 
91, 92, 109, 113, 129, 133, 185, 231. 

Rio de Janeiro, 520. 

Rio de Oro, 519. 

Rio Muni, 519. 

Risorgiinento, 325. 

Rivoli, 160. 

Roberts, Lord, and the South African 
War, 504. 

Robespierre, a monarchist, 98; leader of 
the Jacobin Club, 106; opposes war 
with Austria, 112; overthrow of, 117, 
146; on the Republic, 120; and the 
Girondists, 121, 126; demands execu- 
tion of Louis XVI, 123; and the Com- 
mune, 126; and the Committee of 
Public Safety, 129-130; and Danton, 
139-141; becomes master of the Jaco- 
bins, 141; as dictator, 141-145; fall of, 
145-146, 156. 

Rodjestvensky, Admiral, fleet of, de- 
stroyed, 581. 

Roland, Madame, influence of, no; death 
of, 134; her Memoirs, 135. 

Roman Catholic Church. See Catholic 
Church (Roman). 

Romanoff, House of. See Russia. 

Rome, 166, 507; King of, 226, 232, 318, 
322; Napoleon annexes, 228, 232; rev- 



644 



INDEX 



Rome, continued 

oluti'ons in, 305-306; Garibaldi and, 
2i2,p, 33S; subject to Pope, 339; Italy 
seizes, 360; becomes capital of the 
Kingdoin of Italy, 361, 409. 

RomiUy, on Venice, 253. 

Roosevelt, President, and the Treaty of 
Portsmouth {iQOj), 582; and the Peace 
Conference at the Hague, 593. 

Rossbach, battle of, 15. 

"Rotten House of Commons, Thc,^' by 
Lovett, 444. 

Roumania, Kingdom of, 423, 425, 545, 
553; independence of , recognized, 547- 
548, 552; after 1878, 552-5535 enters 
war against Bulgaria (igij), 605; and 
the Treaty of Bucharest, 605-606. 

Roumanians, in eastern Hungary, 257, 
303, 423-425; in Turkey, 540. 

Roumansch, 531. 

Roumelia, Bulgaria and, 547. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, influence and 
work of, 46, 48, 52, 55-58, 141-142, 
154, 184; on Corsica, 156-157. 

Royal Session (June 23), 73-74. 

Russell, Lord John, and parliamentary 
reform, 436-438; and Gladstone, 451. 

Russia, in i^Sg, i; in the Seven Years' 
War, 4, 14-15; early history, 17-25; 
and Poland, 17, 24, 29, 164, 250, 283- 
287, 560; and Austria, 18-19; Peter 
the Great and, 19-24; and Sweden, 
20, 24; and Turkey, 20, 24, 200; in- 
fJuence of Germany in, 21-22; enters 
war against France, 124; enters new 
coalition, 173, 182; joins England 
against Napoleon, 200-202, 210; Alex- 
a;nder I of, concludes Peace of Tilsit, 
211-212, 215, 217, 233; and the Conti- 
nental System, 216, 233-234; gains 
Finland, 217, 233; Alexander I of, 
and Napoleon at Erfurt, 221-222; 
alliance of, and France renewed, 221, 
223, 228; gains part of Galicia, 224; 
rupture of Franco-Russian alliance, 
233-234; Napoleon invades, 234-237; 
makes Treaty of Kalisch with Prussia, 
237-238; acquisitions of, by Congress 
of Vienna, 242, 249-255; and the 
Duchy of Warsaw, 252; and the 
Quadruple Alliance, 255; and the right 
of intervention, 266-269; aids Greeks 
against the Turks, 269; and the revo- 
lution in Poland, 280, 282-287; recog- 
nizes independence of Belgium, 282; 
and the Crimean War, 322, 332, 543- 
545; and the policy of protection, 



Russia, continued 
372; and Austria rivals in the Balkans, 
374; at war with Turkey, 375, 547; 
and the Treaty of San Stefano, 375, 
547; and the Treaty of Berlin, 375, 
548-550; and the Austro-German 
Treaty of i8yg, 375-376; alliance of, 
and France, 376, 395-396, 534; and 
Sweden, 534; and the Ottoman Em- 
pire, 540-557; and Servia, 541; and 
Greece, 542-543; and Bulgaria, 550^ 
552; to the war with Japan, 558-571; 
and Japan, 569, 571, 577-582, 593; in 
Asia, 572-573; and China, 572, 578; 
since the war with Japan, 585-589; and 
the limitation of armaments, 591; and 
the breaches of the Treaty of Berlin, 
596-597; and the European War, 608- 
618; and the Triple Entente, 614-615. 

Russo-Japanese War, and its conse- 
quences, 580-583. 

Russo-Turkish War {i82q), 543, 560; 
(i^jJ-j), 322, 332, 543-545, 560; 
(1877), 375, 426, 547-550, 552- 

Ruthenians, in Galicia, 422. 

Sacrilege, law against, 273. 

Sadler, Thomas, and child labor, 442. 

Sadowa, battle of, 348, 351, 355; "Re- 
venge for," 355. 

Saghalin, Russia cedes part of, to Japan, 
582. 

Sahara, 405. 

St. Cloud, 175. 

St. Croix, 534. 

St. Helena, Napoleon and, 168, 189, 195, 
199, 244, 247, 257. 

St._ John, 534. 

Saint-Just, 123, 145. 

St. Lawrence, the region of the, 487. 

St. Louis (Africa), 405. 

St. Lucia, 488. 

St. Petersburg, 22-23; Bismarck sent to, 
344; terrorized, 566. 

St. Pierre, 404. 

St. Simon, and socialism, 294. 

St. Thomas, 534. 

Salisbury, Lord, first ministry, 466-467; 
second ministry, 470-471; third min- 
istry, 473-475- 

Salmeron, 518. 

Salonica, troops sent from, 598; Greeks 
enter, 602. 

Samoan Islands, 374. 

San Marino, 264. 

San Stefano, Treaty of, 375, 547. 

Sans-culottcs, 108. 



INDEX 



645 



Santiago, battle of, 519. 
Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, 609. 
Sardinia. See Piedmont. 
Saskatchewan, 493. 
Savona, Mazzini imprisoned at, 326. 
Savoy, 15S; House of, 306, 329-330, 409; 
France desires, 332, 334; insurrection 

in, 335- 

Saxe-Weimar, Grand Duke of, issues Con- 
stitution, 261. 

Sa.\ony, Frederick II and, 14, 15; and 
the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 213; and 
the Confederation of the Rhine, 213, 
228; Prussia desires, 250; King of, re- 
stored, 252; Prussia gains part of, 252; 
revolution in, 287; supports Austria 
in 1S66, 347; representation of, in the 
Bundesrath, 363. 

Scandinavian States, 533-538. 

Schaumburg-Lippe, 365. 

Schiller, 261. 

Schleswig, Denmark and, 345-346, 533; 
Prussia incorporates, 349, 533. 

Schonbrunn, Peace of, 224. 

Schurz, Carl, comes to the United States, 
310. 

Scotland, representation of, in the Eng- 
lish Parliament, 430; Ireland and, 455; 
old age pensions in, 476. 

Scutari, falls, 603. 

Sebastopol, siege of, 544. 

Second Empire (France), 313, 320-324; 
and the Franco-Prussian War, 351-362. 

Second French Republic and the Found- 
ing of the Second Empire, 313-324. 

Sedan, battle of, 358, 360, 382, 384. 

Senate (French), under the Constitution 
of the Year VIII, 180-181; approves 
new constitution, 192; dissolves Napo- 
leon's marriage with Josephine, 224; 
proclaims Louis XVIII King of France, 
241; under the Second Empire, 321; of 
the United States compared with Bun- 
desrath, 363; imder the Third French 
Repubhc, 390-391; and Boulanger, 
395; of the Kingdom of Italy, 409; 
Irish, 483; of the Dominion Parlia- 
ment, 492; Australian, 497. 

Senegal, 404-405. 

Sepoy Mutiny {1857), 489-490. 

September Laws, 292. 

September Massacres, 117-118, 126, 156. 

"Septembrists," 118. 

Septennate, established in France, 389. 

Serfdom, in Europe, 26; in France, 47; 
aboUshed in Prussia, 230; in Russia, 
233, 559, 561-562. 



Sergius, Grand Duke of Russia, assassin- 
ated, 586. 

Serrano, JMarshal, and Spain, 516, 518. 

Scr\-ia, Serbs of Hungary desire incorpor- 
ation in Kingdom of, 425; revolt of, 
541; semi-independent, 545; declares 
war against Turkey, 547; independence 
of, recognized, 547-548; becomes a 
Kingdom, 553; and Bulgaria, 553, 596, 
604-606; and the Balkan War of igi2, 
553; and the breaches of the Treaty of 
Berlin, 596-597; and Austria-Hungary, 
597, 604, 608-612; Macedonian Chris- 
tians flee to, 599; and the Balkan War 
of igi2, 602-605; and Albania, 604; 
and the Treaty of Bucharest, 605-606; 
Austria resolves to attack, 608-612. 

Seven Weeks' War, 347-349. 

Seven Years' War, ly^d-ijds, 3-4, 6-7, 
14-15, 488. 

Shantung, Germany and, 578. 

Sheffield, unrepresented, 432. 

Shiraonoseki, Treaty of, 577. 

Siam, and the First Peace Conference at 
the Hague, 591. 

Siberia, 19; Poles sent to, 286; Russia 
and, 559-560, 565, 570, 572, 585- 

Sicilian Insurrection, 335; Garibaldi and, 
336. See also Naples. 

Sicily, Garibaldi and, 336-337; illiteracy 
in, 411; emigration from, 414. 

Sickness Insiu-ance Law (Germany, i88j), 
.371- 

Sieyes, Abbe, on the Third Estate, 47; 
and Bonaparte, 174-177; and the Con- 
stitution of the Year VIII, 180. 

Silesia, Frederick the Great and, 13-17, 
.29. 

Simon ministry, dismissed, 391. 

Slavery, abolished in English colonies, 

441,499- 

Slavonia, 420; inhabitants of, resist the 
Magyars, 424. 

Slavs, in Austria, 257, 301-305, 421- 
422; In Hungary, 423-425; rise in 
the Balkans, 546; in Russia, 558. 

Slov'aks, 423-425. 

Slovenes, in Carniola, 422. 

Smith, Goldwin, on the American Revo- 
lution, 6. 

Smolensk, 235. 

Sobranje, 55^-55 i- 

Social Contract by Rousseau, 57. 

Social Democrat, founded by Lassalle, 
369, 372. 

Social Democrats (Prussia), 312, 378- 



646 



INDEX 



Socialism, growth of, in France, 294- 
297, 314-317; Bismarck and, 368-372; 
William II and, 378-380; in Russia, 

565- 

Socialists, in Paris, 386; 87 elected in 
Austria, 423; in Portugal, 521; in 
Belgium, 525. 

"Society of the Exterminating Angel," 
268. 

Sofia, 552. 

Solferino, battle of, 333, 416. 

Solovief, 566. 

Somaliland, Italy and, 412. 

Sonderbund, 528-529. 

Soudan, Lord Kitchener recovers, 474, 
514; England and, 505, 513-514- See 
also French Soudan. 

South Africa. See Africa. 

South African Union, 504-505. 

South America, Garibaldi escapes to, 
335-336; Guiana in, a French posses- 
sion, 404; England acquires Dutch 
possessions in, 499, 505; rise of in- 
dependent states of, 515, 519; and 
the Second Peace Conference, 593. 

South Australia, 495. 

Spain, and Florida, 4; and the Jesuits, 
16; enters war against France, 124, 
149; makes, peace with France, 149, 
152; ally of France, 183; colonies of, 
restored, 183; and the war between 
France and England, 216, 221; Napo- 
leon and, 217-223, 229; Charles IV 
of, abdicates, 218; Joseph becomes 
King of, 218, 228; development of 
nationality in, 219-220, 230; and the 
Congress of Vienna, 253; Metternich 
and, 257; after 1808, 262-263; Revo- 
lution of 1S20 in, 266-268, 282; and 
Mexico, 352; Queen Isabella driven 
out of, 356; Germany purchases islands 
from, 374; and Africa, 507; since 1823, 

515-519- 
Speke, 508. 

Spirit of Laws, by Montesquieu, 52-53. 
Stambuloff, 551. 
Standard (London), 434. 
Stanley, and the first Reform Bill, 436. 
Stanley, Henry M., 508-510. 
State SociaUsm (Germany), 371-372. 
States-General (France), summoned, 68; 

meets May 5, ijSg, 69, 70-73, 86; 

(Holland) ,522. See National Assembly 

and Constituent Assembly. 
States of the Church. See Papal States. 
Stein, 230-231. 
Stockholm, 535. 



Storthing (Norway), 534-538- 

Straits of Tsushima, naval battle of, 
581. 

Strassburg, Archbishop of, 42; Louis 
Napoleon Bonaparte at, 318; surren- 
ders, 359. 

Stuarts (England), 2, 3. 

Suez Canal, shares purchased by Eng- 
land, 462, 511. 

Suffrage, universal, in France, 116, 127, 
181; abandoned, 147; under the July 
Monarchy, 291; in Prussia, 311-312; 
Provisional Government establishes 
universal, in France, 315, 317-318, 321; 
universal, demanded in Germany, 369; 
opponents of universal, in Germany, 
379; Chamber of Deputies (France) 
elected by universal, 390, 392; ex- 
tended in Italy, 411; in Austria-Hun- 
gary, 419; universal, in Austria, 423; 
demand for universal, in Hungary, 
426; in England {181 5), 430-431, 434; 
the Reform BUI of 1832 and, 439- 
441, 444; municipal (England), 443; 
demand for further reform in Eng- 
Ush, 445; further extension of, in Eng- 
land, 446, 451-452, 465-466; woman's, 
452, 466, 498; in New Zealand, 498; 
in South Africa, 502; in Spain, 516- 
517? 519; ii^ Holland, 523; in Belgium, 
524-525; in Switzerland, 528; in Den- 
mark, 534; in Sweden, 536, 538; in 
Norway, 538; in Greece, 554-5555 in 
Japan, 577; in Russia altered, 588. 

Sumatra, 523. 

Sun Yat Sen, Dr., chosen president, 583. 

Super-tax, on incomes, 478. 

Surinam, 523. 

"Suspects," 132-133. 

Sweden, in the Seven Years' War, 14; 
and Russia, 20, 22, 24; Alexander 
I and, 211, 233; allied with Eng- 
land, 217; Prussia acquires Pomer- 
ania from, 252; and Finland, 252, 
534; Norway joined with, 253, 533- 
537; dissolution of the union of Nor- 
way and, 537-538; suffrage in, 538. 

Swiss Guard, 76, 114. 

Switzerland, in 1789, i, 26; three can- 
tons added to, 253; and the July 
Revolution, 280; Louis Philippe and, 
289; Mazzini and, 326; German so- 
cialist paper pubhshed in, 370; and , 
Spain, 517; since 181 5, 527-531; and 
Greece, 542; a neutral state, 616. 

Sydney, 494. 

Syria, 1 71-172. 



INDEX 



647 



Taaffe ministry, 422. 

Talleyrand, and the transformation of 
Germany, 206; and the Congress of 
Vienna, 249. 

Talma, 221. 

Taranto, 200. 

Tariff, boundaries, 37; Napoleon estab- 
lishes high protective, 199; in Spain, 
222; Bismarck adopts poHcy of high, 
372-373; in Austria-Hungary, 419; 
on breadstuils in England, 433, 448; 
Huskisson and, 435; England and, 
488; Chamberlain urges, reform, 475; 
Canada and, 493. 

Tasman, and New Zealand, 494. 

Tasmania, 495. 

Taxation, in France under the Old Re- 
gime, 38-42, 44, 47-48; Turgot and, 
64, 66; States General should vote, 70; 
heavy in Italy, 412; additional, in Eng- 
land, 478; in New Zealand, 498; op- 
pressive in Portugal, 521; heavy in 
Japan, 582. 

Telegraph (London, October 28, 1908), 

Temple, King and Queen imprisoned in, 

116. 
Tennis Court Oath, 73. 
Tennyson's In Memoriam, 454. 
Terra A it st rails, 493-494. 
"Terrible Year," 384. 
Terror. See Reign of Terror a)id "Great 

Terror." 
"Terrorists" (Russia), 565-567. 
Tewfik, and the Dual Control, 512. 
Thermidor, 137; death of Robespierre 

on the 9th of, 145-146. 
Thermidorian reaction, 146. 
Thessaly, Greece and, 554-555. 
Thiers, declares a "vacancy of power," 

358; Chief of the Executive Power, 

384, 386-388. 
Third Estate (France) under the Old 

Regime, 38-41, 43, 45-51; demands 

the suppression of feudal dues, 70; 

position of, in the States General, 72- 

73; declares itself the National Assem- 
bly, 73- 
Third Repubhc, in France, 354, 358-360. 
Third Section (Russia), 567. 
Thousand, expedition of the, 336-338. 
Tilsit, Peace of, 211-212, 213, 215, 217, 

221, 233, 534. 
Times, London, and the Dreyfus case, 

.398. 
Tithes, under the Old Regime, 41, 47; 

abandoned, 78, 80, 185; aboUshed in 



Tithes, continued 

South Germany, 208; Irish pay, to 
Anglican Church, 455, 457- 

Tobago, 488. 

Todleben, 544. 

Togo, Admiral, destroys Russian fleet, 
581. 

Togoland, 374. 

Tokio, university established at, 576. 

Tonkin, France and, 393, 406. 

Tories, in England, 3; and George III, 
5; in America, 6; and the French Rev- 
olution, 429; oppose Parliamentary 
reform, 434; and reform, 435-439; 
Gladstone the "hope of," 454. 

Toulon, suspects in, 133; Bonaparte and, 
148, 156, 169. 

Toulouse, speech of Waldeck-Rousseau 
at, 400. 

Tours, seat of government, 359. 

Trades Unions, permitted in France, 
392- 

Trafalgar, battle of, 214, 215; Square, 
318. 

Trans-Saharan railroad contemplated, 
406. 

Trans-Siberian railroad, 568, 579, 581. 

Transvaal or South African Republic, 
499-504. _ 

Transylvania, 420, 423, 425. 

Treitschke, 382. 

Trent, 414. 

Trentino, 414. 

Tribunate, 181. 

Tricolor, adopted, 78; stamped upon, 82; 
cockade, loS; banished, 242; soldiers 
put on, 243; and the July Revolution, 
276, 278; the Count of Chambord and, 
388-389. 

Trieste, Austria retains, 202; ceded to 
France, 224; Italy covets, 414. 

Trinidad, 183, 488. 

Triple Alliance, 374-376, 395^396, 412, 
608, 612, 614; comes to an end, 414- 
415; and the breaches of the Treaty of 
Berlin, 596. 

Triple Entente, England, France and 
Russia, 614. 

TripoU, 404; Italy and, 407, 414, 600- 
601; Turkey and, 507, 601. 

Trochu, General, head of the Goverrmient 
of National Defense, 358. 

Troppau, Congress of, 267. 

Tuileries, Louis XVI and, 84, 97, 113, 
122, 124; attacked, 114, 156; Conven- 
tion meets in, 126, 148; Committee of 
PubUc Safety in, 129; and the Wor- 



648 



INDEX 



Tuileries, conthiued 

ship of Reason, 144; Napoleon returns 
to, 241, 244; Napoleon III and, 322. 

Tunis, France seizes, 375; France estab- 
lishes protectorate over, 393, 404—406, 
50Q, 600; Italy covets, 412, 600; Tur- 
key and, 507. 

Turgot, on the taxation of the peasantry, 
47; and Louis XVI, 62; financial re- 
forms, 64-66, 68; influence of, on 
Napoleon, 154. 

Turin, 158, 265; Parliament meets at, 
335, 33Q; capital of Italy, 409. 

Turkey in lySg, i; and Russia, 18, 20, 
24-25, 200, 375, 543-545, 547-548; 
and Egypt, 168-173, 511-512, 542- 
543; Sultan of, declares war against 
Bonaparte, 1 71-172; Alexander I and, 
211, 233; not represented at the Con- 
gress of Vienna, 249; Kossuth flees to, 
305 ; possessions of, in Africa, 404-405 ; 
Italy and, 414; question of the integ- 
rity of, 463; and Africa, 507; disrup- 
tion of, 540-557; and Greece, 541-543, 
555; and the revolts in the 13alkans, 
545-550; and the Congress of Berlin, 
548-550; revolution in, 555-557, 594- 
595; collapse of the Empire of, 594- 
600; ParUament of, 597; counter-revo- 
lution in, '598; at war with Italy, 
600-601; Balkan States unite against, 
601-606; gains of, by the Treaty of 
Bucharest, 605-606. 

Turko-Italian War of 1911, 600-601. 

Tuscany, {1815), 253, 264; revolution in, 
301-302; Grand Duke of, flees, 306; 
ruler should be restored in, 333, 334; 
annexed to Italy, 334. 

Uitlanders, 501-502. 

Ulm, 201, 214. 

Ulster, and Home Rule, 4S3-485. 

Ultras (France), 272. 

Umbria, annexed by Victor Emmanuel 

II, 338-339- 

Union, Act of (England and Ireland), 
movement to repeal, 456-457, 466. 

Unionist CoaUtion (England), 470. 

Unionists (England), 469, 472-473, 480; 
disruption of, 475-476; policies of, 
from iSq^-iqo^, 476. 

United States, Constitution of, compared 
with French Constitution of lypi, 89- 
91; and the Monroe Doctrine, 268-269; 
Louis Philippe and, 289; emigration of 
German Liberals to, 310, 373; Louis 
Napoleon Bonaparte exiled to, 318; 



United States, continued 

intervention of, in Mexico, 353-354; 
and the policy of protection, 372; 
Germany the rival of, 378; Third 
French Republic compared with, 390- 
391; Italian emigration to, 413-414; 
Irish emigration to, 457; and the 
Alabama award, 461; and the Oregon 
dispute, 492-493; and Spain, 517-519; 
and Greece, 542; Jews from Russia 
emigrate to, 567; and China, 574, 
579; and Japan, 575-576; and the 
First Peace Conference at the Hague, 

5.91- 
Universities, representation of, in the 
English Parliament, 431-432. 

Valais, 528. 

Valengay, 218. 

Valmy, 119, 289. 

Varennes, flight to, 97, 102, 103, 106, 

107. 
Vatican, 410-41 1. 
Vatican Council, proclaims dogma of 

papal infaUibihty, 367. 
Vaud, 528. 
Vendee, civil war in, 96, 102, 124, 127, 

133, 174- 

Vendemiaire, the 13th of, 148-149, 156. 

Venetia, and the Cisalpine Republic, 
165; ceded to the Kingdom of Italy, 
202; Austria acquires, 253; Austrian 
policy in, 265; revolution in, 301-302; 
and the war of iSjp, ;^^y, stiU 
Austrian, 339; Italy receives, 349, 409. 
See also Lombardo- Venetian King- 
dom. 

Venice, in lySg, 1,8, 26; young Russians 
sent to, 20; overthrow of, 162-164; 
disposal of, 165; bronze horses of, 166, 
253; given to Austria, 253, 264; re- 
public restored in, 301; republic of, 
overthrown, 306. .^ 

Verdun, 117. 

Vergniaud, no. 

Verona, Congress of, 267-268. 

Versailles, life at, 32-34, 42-43; govern- 
ment of France directed from, 36; 
States-General to meet in, 68, 70, 86; 
soldiers appear near, 76; tricolor in- 
sulted, 82; people march to, 82; 
King and Assembly leave, 84; palace 
at, 180; royaHsts at, 209; King Wil- 
liam I proclaimed German Emperor 
at, 361; declared the capital, 385-386, 
392. 

Veto BUI. See Parliament Bill. 



INDEX 



649 



Victor Emanuel I (Piedmont), 267. 

Victor Emmanuel II (Piedmont), acces- 
sion of, 306, 329; not consulted con- 
cerning the Preliminaries of Villafranca, 
334; and Sicily, 337; leads army into 
the Papal States, 338; annexes the 
Marches and Umbria, 338; enters 
Naples, 338; proclaimed King of Italy, 
339; enters Rome, 360; the Pope and, 
409; death of, 410; son of, becomes 
King of Spain, 517. 

Victor Emmanuel III, accession of, 413. 

Victoria, colony of, 495, 498. 

Victoria, Queen, 443-444; proclaimed 
Empress of India, 463, 490; her dia- 
mond jubilee, 473; death of, 474. 

Vienna, Marie Antoinette and, 64; 
campaign directed against, 153, 159, 
183, 201; Napoleon enters, 202, 223; 
Peace of, 224; Congress of, 241-242, 
244, 249-257, 260, 264, 266, 280, 
284, 307, 335, 521; Treaties of, 254, 
282; becomes center of European 
affairs, 259; "great deception" of, 
260; Poles come to, 286; the storm 
center in 1848, 298, 300, 301; Prus- 
sian army marches toward, 348; center 
of interest shifts from, to Berlin, 351. 

Vilagos, 305. 

Villafranca, Preliminaries of, 333. 

Vincennes, 191. 

Vladivostok, 572-573; Russian fleet at, 
S8i. 

Volncy, Bonaparte and, 188. 

Voltaire, influence of, 24, 46, 48, 52, 
154; on the laws of France, 37; 
and the Roman Catholic Church, 
50, 55; imprisonment of, 50, 54, 
76; work of, 53-55; compared with 
Rousseau, 55-56. 

Wagram, battle of, 224. 

Waldeck, 381. 

Waldeck-Rousseau, and the separation 
of Church and State in Fraiice, 400- 
401. 

Wales, representation of, in the Eng- 
lish Parliament, 430; old age pensions 
in, 476; Anglican Church in, dises- 
tablished, 485. 

Wallachia, practically independent, 543; 
independent, 545. See Roumania. 

Warsaw, Napoleon goes to, 211; Grand 
Duchy of, 213, 224, 228, 234, 238, 
250-252; fall of, 286; Alexander I 
and the Grand Duchy of, 559-560. 

Wartburg Festival, 261, 287. 



Waterloo, 7, no, 168; battle of, 246-247, 
257, 263, 270, 298, 300, 428, 433. 

" Weekly Political Register, The," 434. 

Weimar, Duke of, 261. 

Wellesley, Sir Arthur (later Duke of Well- 
ington), and the war in Spain, 221, 
239; miUtary tactics of, 235; invades 
France, 239; and Napoleon at Water- 
loo, 244-247; and the Congress of 
Vienna, 249; ministry of, resigns, 436; 
WilUam IV and, 439; and the Chartist 
agitation, 446. 

Wellington, Duke of. Sec WeUesley. 

Wellington, New Zealand, 497. 

West Indies, French possessions in, 404; 
slavery in English colonies in, 441; 
England and, 487; Dutch colonies in, 
523; Danish colonies in, 534. 

Western Australia, 495. 

Westminster Abbe}', 472, 508. 

Westminster, Parliament at, and Ireland, 
466, 468. 

Westphalia, treaties of, 105; Kingdom 
of, and the Confederation of the 
Rhine, 213, 228; Jerome flees from, 

239- 

Wet, Christian de, 504. 

Wetherell, and the second Reform BiU, 
438. 

Weyler, 518. 

Whigs, rule of, in England, 3; and 
George III, 5; and the American 
Revolution, 6; urge reform of ParUa- 
ment, 436-441; other reforms of, 441- 

443- 

Wieland, 222. 

Wilberforce, and slavery, 441. 

Wilhelmina, Queen (Holland), 5227-523. 

William I (Holland), 522-523. 

WiUiam II (Holland), 522. 

WilUam HI (HoUand), 522. 

William I (Prussia), 342-350; proclaimed 
German Emperor, 361; reign of, 366; 
and Socialism, 368; death of, 376. 

William II, character of his ride, 365; 
reign of, 366, 376-382. 

William IV of England {18 30-1 8 37), 
accession of, 436; and the tliird Re- 
form Bill, 439; death of, 443. 

William of Wied, and Albania, 606. 

Windischgnitz, bombards Prague, 302. 

Witte, Sergius de, industrial policy of, 
568. 

Wolfe, defeats Montcalm, 4. 

Wordsworth, on Venice, 164. 

Worship of Reason, 138-139, 142. 

Wurmser, 159. 



<2^;^ 



650 



INDEX 



Wiirtemberg, electorate of, 9; becomes 
a kingdom, 203; and the Confederation 
of the Rhine, 206; and the Congress 
of Vienna, 249; supports Austria in 
1866, 347 ; joins Prussia against France, 
357; representation of, in the Bundes- 
rath, 364. 

"Young Ireland," 456. 
"Young Italy," founded by Mazzini, 
326-327, 335. 



Young Turks, and the Revolution oj 
1908, SSS-556, 594-595; policy of, 
597-600. 

Yuan Shih K'ai, President of the Re 
public of China, 583. 

Zola, Emile, and the Dreyfus case, 397, 

399- 
Zurich, 527, constitution of the canton 

of, 531- 



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